NIVERSITY  OF  CA  RIVERSIDE,  LIBRARY 


II  Ml  I  llll   III 

3  1210  01782  4770 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OE  CALIEORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Kate  Gordon  Moore 


1 


-fi/ 


1^ 


'\ 


LECTURES 


STUDY    OF    HISTORY, 


DELIVERED 


IN   OXFORD,  1859-Gl. 


By    GOLDWIN    SMITH,    M.A., 

IJEGIUS   PKOFESSOR  OF   MODERN   HISTORY  IN   TUB   UNIVERSITY  OF 
OXFORD. 

TO   WmCU   IS  ADDED 

A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  N.  Y.  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY, 
IN  DECEMBER,  1SC4,  ON 

THE   UNIVERSITY    OF   OXFORD. 


NEW    YORK: 
HARPER   &    BROTHERS,    TUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN      SQUARE. 

1  8  G  (J. 


'JJ)L 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

An  Inauguual  Lecture 5 

On  the  Study  of  History — 1 45 

On  the  Study  of  History — II 81 

Ox   SOME    SUPPOSED  COXSEQUENCES   OF  THE   DOCTRINE   OF  HISTOR- 
ICAL Progress 117 

The  Moral  Freedom  op  Man 1G5 

On  the  Foundation  of  the  American  Colonies 185 

The  University  of  Oxford 217 


AN   INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 


New  statutes  having  just  been  made  by  the  crown, 
on  the  recommendation  of  the  council,  for  the  purpose 
of  adapting  the  professorship  I  have  the  honor  to  hold 
to  the  present  requirements  of  the  University,  this  seems 
a  fit  occasion  for  saying  a  few  words  on  the  study  of 
Modern  History  in  Oxford,  and  the  functions  of  this 
Chair  in  relation  to  that  study.  I  made  some  remarks 
on  the  subject  in  commencing  my  first  course  with  my 
class ;  but  the  new  statutes  were  then  only  under  consid- 
eration, and,  before  venturing  to  address  the  University, 
I  wished  to  become  acquainted  with  the  state  of  the 
Modern  History  school  and  with  the  duties  of  my  Chair. 

This  Chair  was  founded  in  the  reign  of  George  I.,  and 
its  original  object  was  to  train  students  for  the  public 
service.  The  foundation  was  double,  one  Chair  here  and 
one  at  Cambridge.  Attached  to  each  Chair  were  two 
teachers  of  modern  languages  and  twenty  king's  schol- 
ars, whose  education  in  history  and  the  modern  languages 
the  professor  was  to  superintend,  and  the  most  proficient 
among  whom  he  was  to  recommend  from  time  to  time 
for  employment,  at  home  or  abroad,  in  the  service  of  the 
state.     Diplomacy  was  evidently  the  first  object  of  the 


6  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

foundation,  for  a  knowledge  of  treaties  is  mentioned  in 
the  letters  patent  of  foundation  as  specially  necessary 
for  the  public  interest.  Some  subsequent  regulations, 
though  of  doubtful  validity,  named  International  Law 
and  Political  Economy,  with  the  Method  of  reading  Mod- 
ern Ilistory  and  Political  Biography,  as  the  subjects  for 
the  professor's  lectures.  Thus  the  whole  foundation  may 
be  said  to  have  been,  in  great  measure,  an  anticipation 
of  the  late  resolution  of  the  University  to  found  a  school 
of  Law  and  Modern  History.  The  Professorship  of  Mod- 
ern History,  the  Professorship  of  Political  Economy,  the 
Chichele  Professorship  of  Diplomacy  and  International 
Law,  the  Professor  and  Teachers  of  the  Modern  Lan- 
guages, do  now  for  the  students  of  our  present  school 
just  what  the  Professor  of  History  and  his  two  teachers 
of  Modern  Languages  were  originally  intended  to  do  for 
the  twenty  king's  scholars  under  their  care.  The  whole 
of  these  subjects  have  farther  been  brought  into  connec- 
tion, in  the  new  school,  with  their  natural  associate,  the 
study  of  Law. 

I  have  failed,  in  spite  of  the  kind  assistance  of  my 
friends,  the  Librarian  of  the  Bodleian  and  the  Keeper  of 
the  Archives,  to  trace  the  real  author  of  what  we  must 
allow  to  have  been  an  enlightened  and  far-sighted 
scheme — a  scheme  which,  had  it  taken  eflcct,  might  have 
supplied  Parliament  and  the  public  service  in  the  last 
century  with  highly -trained  legislators  and  statesmen, 
and  perhaps  have  torn  some  dark  and  disastrous  pages 
from  our  history.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  jiraise  is  due 
to  the  king  himself,  who,  though  not  without  sense  and 
public   spirit,  was   indifferent  to    intellectual    pursuits. 


AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  7 

Conjecture  points  to  Sir  Eobert  Walpole.  That  minis- 
ter was  at  the  height  of  power  when  the  professorship 
was  founded  under  George  I.  When  the  foundation  was 
confirmed  under  George  II.,  he  had  just  thrust  aside  the 
feeble  pretensions  of  Sir  Spencer  Compton,  and  gathered 
the  reins  of  government,  for  a  moment  placed  in  the 
weak  hands  of  the  favorite,  again  into  his  own  strong 
and  skillful  grasp.  If  Walpole  was  the  real  founder — if 
he  even  sanctioned  the  foundation — it  is  a  remarkable 
testimony  from  a  political  leader  of  a  turn  of  mind  prac- 
tical to  coarseness,  and  who  had  discarded  the  literary 
statesmen  of  the  Somers  and  Halifax  school,  to  the  value 
of  high  political  education  as  a  qualification  for  the  pub- 
lic service.  It  is  also  creditable  to  the  memory  of  a  min- 
ister, the  reputed  father  of  the  system  of  Parliamentary 
corruption,  that  he  should  have  so  far  anticipated  one  of 
the  best  of  modern  reforms  as  to  have  been  willing  to 
devote  a  large  amount  of  his  patronage  to  merit,  and  to 
take  that  merit  on  the  recommendation  of  Universities, 
one  of  which,  at  least,  was  by  no  means  friendly  to  the 
crown. 

King  George  I.,  however,  or  his  minister,  was  not  the 
first  of  English  rulers  who  had  endeavored  to  draw  di- 
rect from  the  University  a  supply  of  talented  and  high- 
ly-educated men  for  the  service  of  the  state,  I  almost 
shrink  from  mentioning  the  name  which  intrudes  so 
grimly  into  the  long  list  of  the  Tory  and  Iligh-Church 
Chancellors  of  Oxford.  But  it  was  at  least  the  nobler 
part  of  Cromwell's  character  which,  led  him  to  protect 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  from  the  leveling  fanaticism  of 
his  party,  to  make  liimsclf  our  chancellor,  to  foster  our 


8  AN   INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

learning  -witli  his  all-pervading  energy,  and  to  seek  to 
draw  our  choicest  youth  to  councils  which  it  must  be 
allowed  were  always  filled,  as  far  as  the  evil  time  per- 
mitted, with  an  eye  to  the  interest  of  England,  and  to 
her  interest  alone.  Cromwell's  name  is  always  in  the 
mouths  of  those  who  despise  or  hate  high  education, 
who  call  in  every  public  emergency  for  native  energy 
and  rude  common  sense — for  no  subtle  and  fastidious 
philosophers,  but  strong  practical  men.  They  seem  to 
think  that  he  really  was  a  brewer  of  Iluntingdon,  who 
left  his  low  calling  in  a  fit  of  fanatical  enthusiasm  to  lead 
a  great  cause  (great,  whether  it  were  the  right  cause  or 
the  wrong)  in  camp  and  council,  to  win  Dunbar  against 
a  general  who  had  foiled  Wallcnstein,  to  fascinate  the 
imagination  of  Milton,  and  by  his  administration  at  home 
and  abroad  to  raise  England,  in  five  short  years  and  on 
the  morrow  of  a  bloody  civil  war,  to  a  height  of  great- 
ness to  which  she  still  looks  back  with  a  proud  and  wist- 
ful eye,  Cromwell,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  was  by  birth 
a  gentleman,  living  neither  in  any  considerable  height, 
nor  yet  in  obscurity ;"  he  was  educated,  suitably  to  his 
birth,  at  a  good  classical  school ;  he  was  at  Cambridge ; 
he  read  law ;  but,  what  was  much  more  than  this,  he, 
who  is  supposed  to  have  owed  his  power  to  ignorance 
and  narrowness  of  mind,  had  brooded  almost  to  madness 
over  the  deepest  questions  of  religion  and  politics,  and, 
as  a  kinsman  of  Hampden  and  an  active  member  of 
Hampden's  party,  had  held  intimate  converse  on  those 
questions  with  the  profoundcst  and  keenest  intellects  of 
that  unrivaled  age.  And  therefore  his  ambition,  if  it 
was  treasonable,  was  not  low.     Therefore  he  bore  him- 


AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE.  9 

self  always  not  as  one  who  gambled  for  a  stake,  but  as 
one  who  struggled  for  a  cause.  Therefore  the  great  sol- 
dier loved  the  glory  of  peace  above  the  glory  of  war, 
and,  the  moment  he  could  do  so,  sheathed  his  victorious 
sword ;  therefore,  if  he  was  driven  to  govern  by  force, 
he  was  driven  to  it  with  reluctance,  and  only  after  long 
striving  to  govern  by  nobler  means ;  therefore  he  kept  a 
heart  above  tinsel,  and,  at  a  height  which  had  turned  the 
head  of  C^sar,  remained  always  master  of  himself ;  there- 
fore he  loved  and  called  to  his  council-board  high  and 
cultivated  intellect,  and  employed  it  to  serve  the  interest 
of  the  state  without  too  anxiously  inquiring  how  it 
would  serve  his  own ;  therefore  he  felt  the  worth  of  the 
Universities,  saved  them  from  the  storm  which  laid 
throne  and  altar  in  the  dust,  and  earnestly  endeavored 
to  give  them  their  due  place  and  influence  as  seminaries 
of  statesmen.  Those  who  wish  to  see  the  conduct  of  a 
real  brewer  turned  into  a  political  chief  should  mark  the 
course  of  Santerre  in  the  French  Eevolution.  Those 
who  wish  to  see  how  power  is  wielded  without  high  cul- 
tivation and  great  ideas,  should  trace  the  course  of  Na- 
poleon, so  often  compared  with  Cromwell,  and  preferred 
to  him — ^Napoleon,  the  great  despiser  of  philosophers — 
and  ask  whether  a  little  of  the  philosophy  which  he  de- 
spised might  not  have  mitigated  the  vulgar  vanity  which 
breathes  through  his  bulletins,  and  tempered  his  vulgar 
lust  of  conquest  with  some  regard  for  nobler  things.  It 
would  indeed  be  a  flaw  in  nature  if  that  which  Arnold 
called  the  highest  earthly  work,  the  work  of  government, 
were  best  performed  by  blind  ignorance  or  headlong 
force,  or  by  a  cunning  which  belongs  almost  as  much  to 
'^  A  2  '" 


10  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

brutes  as  to  man.  The  men  who  have  really  left  their 
mark  in  England,  the  founders  of  her  greatness  from 
Alfred  to  the  Elizabethan  statesmen,  and  from  the  Eliz- 
abethan statesmen  down  to  Canning  and  Peel,  have  been 
cultivated  in  various  ways ;  some  more  by  study,  some 
more  by  thought ;  some  by  one  kind  of  study,  some  by 
another;  but  in  one  way  or  other  they  have  been  all 
cultivated  men.  The  minds  of  all  have  been  fed  and 
stimulated,  through  one  channel  or  another,  with  the 
great  thoughts  of  those  who  had  gone  before  them,  and 
prepared  for  action  by  lofty  meditations,  the  parents  of 
high  designs. 

The  attempt  of  the  crown,  however,  to  found  a  politic- 
al school  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  by  means  of  this  pro- 
fessorship must  be  said,  at  the  time,  to  have  failed.  Per- 
haps at  Oxford  the  "Whig  seed  fell  on  a  Jacobite  soil. 
Long  after  this  the  evils  of  a  disputed  succession  were 
felt  here,  and  the  University  was  the  slave  of  one  of  the 
two  political  factions,  to  the  utter  loss  of  her  true  power 
and  her  true  dignity  as  the  impartial  parent  of  good  and 
great  citizens  for  the  whole  nation.  The  Jacobite  Ilearne 
has  recorded  in  his  Diary  his  anguish  at  the  base  con- 
descension of  the  Convocation  in  even  returning  thanks 
for  the  professorship  to  the  royal  founder,  whom  he 
styles  "  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  commonly  called  King 
George  I."  Nor  does  the  new  study  in  itself  seem  to 
have  been  more  welcome,  at  this  time,  than  other  inno- 
vations. The  Convocation  point  their  gratitude  especial- 
ly to  that  part  of  the  royal  letter  which  promises  *•  that 
the  hours  for  teaching  his  majesty's  scholars  the  Modern 
Lanffuases  shall  be  so  ordered  as  not  to  interfere  with 


AN  INAUGUEAL   LECTURE.  11 

those  already  appointed  for  their  academical  studies." 
What  the  academical  studies  were  which  were  to  be  so 
jealously  guarded  against  the  intrusion  of  Modern  His- 
tory and  Modern  Languages,  what  they  were  even  for 
one  who  came  to  Oxford  gifted,  ardent,  eager  to  be 
taught,  is  written  in  the  autobiography  of  Gibbon.  It? 
is  written  in  every  history,  every  essay,  every  novel, 
every  play  which  describes  or  betrays  the  manners  of  the 
clergy  and  gentry  of  England  in  that  dissolute,  heartless, 
and  unbelieving  age.  It  is  written  in  the  still  darker 
records  of  faction,  misgovernment,  iniquity  in  the  high 
places  both  of  Church  and  State,  and  in  the  political  evils 
and  fiscal  burdens  which  have  been  bequeathed  by  those 
bad  rulers  even  to  our  time.  The  corruption  was  not 
universal,  or  the  nation  would  never  have  lifted  its  head 
again.  The  people  received  the  religion  which  the  gen- 
try and  clergy  had  rejected ;  the  people  preserved  the 
traditions  of  English  morality  and  English  duty;  the 
people  repaired,  by  their  unflagging  industry,  the  waste  j 
of  profligate  finance,  and  of  reckless  and  misconducted 
wars.  But  as  to  the  character  of  the  upper  classes,  whose 
educational  discipline  the  Convocation  of  that  day  were 
so  anxious  to  guard  against  the  intrusion  of  new  knowl- 
edge, there  can  not  be  two  opinions.  We  have  left  that 
depravity  far  behind  us ;  but  in  the  day  of  its  ascenden- 
cy perhaps  its  greatest  source  was  here.  

But  not  only  was  Oxford  lukewarm  in  encouraging 
the  new  studies ;  the  crown,  almost  unavoidably,  failed 
to  do  its  part.  At  the  time  of  the  foundation  Walpolc 
was  all-powerful,  and  might  have  spared  a  part  of  the 
great  bribery  fund  of  patronage  for  the  promotion  of 


12  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

merit.  But  soon  followed  the  fierce  Parliamentary  strug- 
gles of  his  declining  hour,  when  the  refusal  of  a  place 
in  a  public  office  might  have  cost  a  vote,  a  vote  might 
have  turned  a  division,  and  an  adverse  division  might 
not  only  have  driven  the  hated  minister  from  place,  but 
have  consigned  him  to  the  Tower.  After  the  foil  of 
Walpole  came  a  long  reign  of  corruption,  connived  at, 
though  not  shared,  even  by  the  soaring  patriotism  of 
Chatham,  in  which  it  would  have  been  in  vain  to  hope 
that  any  thing  which  could  be  coveted  by  a  borough- 
monger  would  be  bestowed  upon  a  promising  student. 
Under  these  most  adverse  circumstances,  few  king's  schol- 
ars seem  ever  to  have  been  appointed.  The  scholars, 
and  the  commission  given  by  the  original  statutes  to  the 
professor  to  recommend  the  most  diligent  for  employment 
under  the  crown,  have  now,  after  long  abeyance,  been 
formally  abolished  by  the  council  in  framing  the  new 
statutes  f  I  confess,  a  little  to  my  regret.  The  abuse  of 
patronage  drove  the  nation  to  the  system  of  competitive 
examination.  Competitive  examination,  in  its  turn,  may 
be  found  to  have  its  drawbacks.  In  that  case,  there  may 
be  a  disposition  to  try  honest  recommendation  by  public 
bodies ;  and  in  that  event,  it  might  not  have  been  out  of 
place  for  the  Universities  to  remind  the  government  of 
the  expressed  desire  and  the  old  engagement  of  the  crown. 
In  the  mean  time,  Modern  History  and  its  associate 
studies  enjoy  the  more  certain  encouragement  of  a  Mod- 
ern Uistory  School  and  academical  honors.  They  also 
enjoy,  or  ought  to  enjoy,  the  encouragement  of  being  the 
subjects  of  examination  for  the  fellowships  of  All  Souls; 
a  college  destined  by  the  statesman  wlio  founded  it,  in 


AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE.  13 

great  measure,  for  the  study  of  the  Civil  Law ;  that  study 
which  once  formed  the  statesmen  of  Europe  and  connect- 
ed the  Universities  with  the  cabinets  of  kings,  and  the 
wealthy  and  powerful  professors  of  which,  in  Italy,  its 
most  famous  seat,  sleep  beside  princes,  magistrates,  and 
nobles,  in  many  a  sumptuous  tomb. 

Possibly,  also,  the  School  of  Law  and  Modern  History 
being  practically  a  modified  revival  of  the  Faculty  of 
Law  in  the  University,  the  subjects  of  examination  for 
the  degree  of  B.C.L.,  and  the  qualifications  for  the  degree 
of  D.C.L.  might  be  modified  in  a  corresponding  manner. 
If  this  were  done,  I  should  not  despair  of  seeing  a  real 
value  imparted  to  these  degrees.  I  would  respectfully 
commend  this  point  to  the  consideration  of  the  Council. 

The  University  seems  to  have  had  two  objects  in  in- 
stituting the  new  schools — that  of  increasing  industry  by 
bringing  into  play  the  great  motive  power  of  love  of  a 
•special  subject,  and  that  of  making  education  a  more  di-^ 
rect  training  for  life.  These  are  the  titles  of  the  Higtoty 
School  to  continued  support,  even  if  its  state  for  some 
time  to  come  should  need  indulgence ;  as  indulgence  I 
fear  it  will  long  need,  unless  the  University  should  see 
fit  to  place  it  under  more  regular  and  authoritative  guid- 
ance, and  unless  the  difficulties  which  colleges  find  in 
providing  permanent  tuition  in  this  department  can  be 
in  some  way  overcome. 

That  the  love  of  a  special  subject  is  a  great  spur  to  in- 
dustry needs  no  proof,  and  it  has  never  yet  been  shown 
that  the  mind  is  less  exercised  when  it  is  exercised  with 
pleasure.  Every  experienced  student  knows  that  the 
great  secret  of  study  is  to  read  with  appetite.     Under  the 


14  AN   INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

old  system,  the  University  relied  mainly  on  the  motive 
of  ambition.  Such  ambition  is  manly  and  generous,  and 
its  contests  here,  conducted  as  they  are,  teach  men  to 
keep  the  rules  of  honor  in  the  contests  of  after  life. 
Study  jDursued  under  its  influence  generally  makes  an 
aspiring  character;  but  study  pursued,  in  part,  at  least, 
from  love  of  the  subject,  makes  a  happier  character;  and 
why  should  not  this  also  be  taken  into  account  in  choos- 
ing the  subjects  of  education  ?  But  the  grand  and 
proved  defect  of  ambition  as  a  motive  is,  that  it  fails  with 
most  natures,  and  that  it  fails  especially  with  those,  cer- 
tainly not  the  least  momentous  part  of  our  charge,  whose 
position  as  men  of  wealth  and  rank  is  already  fixed  for 
them  in  life. 

To  make  University  education  a  more  direct  prepara- 
tion for  after  life  may  be  called  Utilitarianism.  The  ob- 
jection, no  doubt,  flows  from  a  worthy  source.  We  are 
the  teachers  of  a  great  University,  and  wc  may  take 
counsel  of  her  greatness.  We  may  act,  and  are  bound 
to  act,  on  far-sighted  views  of  the  real  interests  of  educa- 
tion, without  paying  too  much  deference  to  the  mere 
fashion  of  the  hour.  But  the  most  far-sighted  views  of 
the  real  interests  of  education  would  lead  us  to  make  our 
system  such  as  to  draw  hither  all  the  mental  aristocracy 
of  the  country ;  its  nobility,  its  gentry,  its  clergy,  its 
great  professions,  the  heads  of  its  great  manufactures 
and  trades.  It  was  so  in  the  earlier  period  of  our  histo- 
ry, when  almost  every  man  of  intellectual  eminence  in 
any  line  must  have  looked  back  to  the  Universities  not 
only  as  the  scene  of  his  youth,  but  as  the  source  of  the 
knowledge  which  was  to  him  power,  wealth,  and  honor. 


AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  15 

To  power,  wealth,  and  honor  our  system  of  education- 
must  lead,  if  it  is  to  keep  its  hold  on  England,  though 
it  should  be  to  power  which  shall  be  nobly  used,  to 
wealth  which  shall  be  nobly  spent,  and  to  honor  which 
shall  shine  beyond  the  hour.  Utilitarianism  in  educa- 
tion is  a  bad  thing.  But  the  great  places  of  national 
education  may  avoid  Utilitarianism  till  government  is  in 
the  hands  of  ambitious  ignorance,  till  the  Bench  of  Jus- 
tice is  filled  with  pettifoggers,  till  coarse  cupidity  and  em- 
piricism stand  beside  the  sick-bed,  till  all  the  great  lev- 
ers of  opinion  are  in  low,  uneducated  hands.  Our  care 
for  the  education  of  the  middle  classes,  however  it  may 
be  applauded  in  itself,  will  ill  comjoensate  the  country  for 
our  failure  to  perform  thoroughly  the  task  of  educating 
our  peculiar  charge,  the  upper  classes,  and  training  them 
to  do,  and  teaching  them  how  to  do,  their  duty  to  the 
people. 

There  is  one  class  of  our  students — I  fear  of  late  a  di- 
minishing class — which  I  believe  the  University  had  es- 
pecially in  view  in  instituting  the  School  of  Law  and 
Modern  History,  and  which  it  was  thought  particularly 
desirable  to  win  to  study  by  the  attraction  of  an  interest- 
ing subject,  and  to  train  directly  for  the  duties  of  after 
life,  more  especially  as  the  education  of  this  class  closes 
here.  The  duties  in  after  life  of  the  class  I  refer  to  are 
peculiar,  and  its  position  seems  fast  becoming  unique  in 
Europe. 

"In  Flanders,  Holland,  Friesland,"  says  Mr.  Laing,  in 
his  well-known  work  on  Europe  in  1848,  "  about  the  es- 
tuaries of  the  Scheldt,  Ehine,  Ems,  "Wcser,  Elbe,  and  Ey- 
der ;  in  a  great  part  of  Westphalia  and  other  districts  of 


16  AN   INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

Germany;  in  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway;  and  in  the 
south  of  Europe,  in  Switzerland,  the  Tyrol,  Lombardy, 
and  Tuscany,  the  peasants  have  from  very  early  times 
been  the  proprietors  of  a  great  proportion  of  the  land. 
France  and  Prussia"  (it  seems  he  will  soon  be  able  to 
say  Eussia)  "  have  in  our  times  been  added  to  the  coun- 
tries in  which  the  land  is  divided  into  small  estates  of 
working  peasant  proprietors.  In  every  country  of  Eu- 
rope, under  whatever  form  of  government,  however  re- 
motely and  indirectly  affected  by  the  wars  and  convul- 
sions of  the  French  Eevolution,  and  however  little  the 
laws,  institutions,  and  spirit  of  the  government  may  as 
yet  be  in  accordance  with  this  social  state  of  the  people, 
the  tendency,  during  this  century,  has  been  to  the  divis- 
ion and  distribution  of  the  land  into  small  estates  of  a 
working  peasant  proprietarj^  not  to  its  aggregation  into 
large  estates  of  a  nobility  and  gentry.  This  has  been  the 
real  revolution  in  Europe.  The  only  exception  is  Great 
Britain."  In  the  colonies,  we  may  add,  even  of  Great 
Britain,  the  tendency  to  small  estates  and  working  pro- 
prietors prevails;  and  as  colonies  are  drawn,  generally 
speaking,  from  the  most  advanced  and  enterprising  part 
of  the  population,  their  tendencies  are  to  their  mother 
country  a  prophecy  of  her  own  future. 

The  force  of  opinion  in  this  age  is  paramount,  and  it 
runs  with  the  certainty,  if  not  with  the  speed  of  electric- 
ity round  the  sympathetic  circle  of  European  nations. 
Of  these  two  systems,  the  system  of  great  landowners  and 
the  system  of  small  working  proprietors,  that  will  assur- 
edly prevail  which  European  opinion  shall  decide  to  be 
the  better  for  the  whole  people.     But  which  is  the  better 


AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  17 

system  for  the  whole  people  is  a  question  with  a  double 
aspect.  One  aspect  is  that  of  physical  condition,  the  oth- 
er is  that  of  civilization.  It  may  be  that  the  civilizing 
influence  of  a  resident  class  of  gentry,  well  educated 
themselves,  and  able  and  willing  to  be  the  moral  and  so- 
cial educators  of  the  people,  may  countervail  the  material 
advantages  which  a  landowning  peasantry  enjoy,  and 
even  the  accession  of  moral  dignity,  the  prudence,  the 
frugality,  which  the  possession  of  property  in  the  lower 
class,  even  more  than  in  ours,  seems  clearly  to  draw  in 
its  train.*  But  then  the  gentry  must  know  their  posi- 
tion, and  own  their  duty  to  those  by  whose  labor  they 
are  fed.  They  must  be  resident,  they  must  be  well-edu- 
cated, they  must  be  able  and  willing  to  act  as  the  social 
and  moral  educators  of  those  below  them.  They  must 
do  their  part,  and  their  Universities  must  make  it  a  defi- 
nite and  primary  object  to  teach  them  to  do  their  part,  in 
a  system  under  which,  if  they  will  do  their  part,  they  at 
least  may  enjoy  such  pure,  true,  and  homefelt  happiness 
as  never  Spanish  grandee  or  French  seigneur  knew.  If 
they  are  to  make  it  their  dut}'',  under  the  influence  of 
overstrained  notions  of  the  rights  of  property,  to  squan- 
der the  fruits  of  the  peasant's  labor  in  dull  luxury,  or  in 
swelling  the  vice  and  misery  of  some  great  capital,  the 
cry  already  heard,  "the  great  burden  on  land  is  the  land- 
lord," may  swell  till  it  prevails — till  it  prevails  in  En- 
gland, as  it  has  prevailed  in  the  land,  separated  from  ours 
only  by  a  few  leagues  of  sea,  which,  eighty  years  ago, 

*  I  am  here  only  stating  the  case  as  it  may  he  stated  in  favor  of  the 
jirescnt  system,  not  Riving  my  own  ojuiiion  on  the  <|ucstion. — Note  to  2<.l 
edit. 


18  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

fed  the  luxury  of  Versailles.  The  luxury  of  Versailles 
seemed  to  itself  harmless  and  even  civilizing ;  it  was 
graceful  and  enlightened ;  it  was  not  even  found  wanting 
in  philanthropy,  though  it  was  found  wanting  in  active 
duty.  Before  the  Kevolution,  the  fervor  and  the  auster- 
ity of  Eousseau  had  cast  out  from  good  society  the  levity 
and  sensuality  of  Voltaire.*  Atheism,  frivolit}'-,  heartlcss- 
ness,  sybaritism,  had  gone  out  of  fashion  with  Madame 
de  Pompadour  and  Madame  Dubarri.  Theism,  philan- 
thropy, earnestness,  even  simplicity  of  life,  or  at  least  the 
praise  of  simplicity  of  life,  had  become  the  order  of  the 
day ;  and  the  beams  of  better  times  to  come  played  upon 
the  current,  and  the  rainbow  of  Utopian  hope  bent  over 
it,  as  it  drew,  with  a  force  now  past  mortal  control,  to  the 
most  terrible  gulf  in  history.  Even  the  genius  of  Carlylc 
has  perhaps  failed  to  paint  strongly  enough  this  charac- 
teristic of  the  Eevolution,  and  to  make  it  preach  clearly 
enough  its  tremendous  lesson  as  to  the  difference  between 
social  sentiment  and  social  duty.  We  know  Paley's  apo- 
logue of  the  idle  pigeon,  consuming,  squandering,  scatter- 
ing about  in  lordly  wastefulness  the  store  of  corn  labori- 
ously gathered  for  him  by  the  subservient  flock.  That 
apologue,  catching  the  eye  of  King  George  III.,  is  said  to 
have  cost  Paley  a  bishopric.  But  its  moral,  duly  point- 
ed, is  nothing  more  dangerous  than  that  i)roperty  has  its 
duties.  Landed  property,  fortunately  for  the  moral  dig- 
nity and  real  happiness  of  its  possessors,  has  its  obvious 
duties.  Funded  property,  and  other  kinds  of  accumula- 
ted wealth,  have  duties  less  obvious,  to  the  performance 
of  which  the  possessors  must  be  guided,  if  their  Univer- 

*  Sec  Lavallue,  Ilistoirc  ties  Franeai«,  book  iii.,  section  3,  chapfcr  .'». 


AN   INAUGUEAL   LECTURE.  19 

sities  desire  to  see  tbcra  living  the  life  and  holding  the 
place  in  creation  not  of  animals  of  large,  varied,  and  elab- 
orate consumption,  but  of  men. 

But  can  education  teach  the  rich  to  do  their  duty  ?  If  j 
it  can  not,  why  do  the  rich  come  to  places  of  education  2  ; 
If  it  can  not,  what  have  we  to  do  but  abdicate  that  part 
of  our  trust?  But  experience  says  it  can.  Look  round 
to  the  really  well-educated  men  of  property  of  your  ac- 
quaintance. Are  they  not,  as  a  body,  good  and  active 
members  of  society,  promoters  of  good  social  objects,  and, 
if  landowners,  resident,  and  endeavoring  to  earn  the  rent 
the  labor  of  the  people  pays  them  by  doing  good  among 
the  people  ?  In  feudal  times,  when  the  landed  aristocra- 
cy and  gentry  owed  the  state  military  service,  they  were 
trained  to  arms ;  now  they  owe  the  state  social  service, 
and.  they  must  be  trained  by  education  to  social  duties  ; 
not  to  the  duties  of  schoolmasters,  lecturers,  or  statists, 
but  to  the  duties  of  landed  gentlemen.  Before  the  late 
changes,  the  influence  of  education  had  hardly  been  tried 
on  them.  A  little  philology  and  a  little  geometry,  for- 
gotten as  soon  as  learned,  might  sharpen  the  wits  a  little, 
but  could  awaken  no  lasting  intellectual  interests,  open 
no  intellectual  pleasures  to  compete  with  animal  enjoy- 
ments, kindle  generous  sympathies  and  aspirations  in  no 
heart.  Now  we  have  for  the  aristocracy  and  gentry  a 
school,  in  effect,  of  Social  Science,  that  is,  of  Jurispru- 
dence, including  Constitutional  Law,  and  of  Political 
Economy,  with  History  illustrating  both.  This  appeals, 
as  directly  as  it  can,  to  the  interests  of  the  class  for  whom 
it  was  instituted,  and  by  whom  it  appears  not  to  be  re- 
jected.    It  is   an  experiment,  but  it  is  a  rational  and 


20  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

practical  experiment,  and  human  legislation  can  be  no 
more,* 

I  dwell  on  these  points  because  we  have  heard  ex- 
pressed, by  persons  of  influence  in  council  and  congrega- 
tion, a  desire,  which  I  doubt  not  extensively  prevails,  to 
undo  our  recent  legislation ;  a  feeling  which,  if  it  docs 
not  actually  bring  us  back  to  the  old  system,  may  cripple 
the  operation  of  the  new.  The  old  system  stood  con- 
demned, so  far  as  the  gentry  were  concerned,  not  by  its 
theoretical  imperfections  as  a  scheme  of  education,  but 
by  its  manifest  results — results  which  are  felt  and  de- 
plored in  country  parishes  by  clergymen  who  uphold 
the  system  here.  History  and  its  cognate  subjects  may 
not  prove  as  much  intellectual  power  as  the  mixed  phil- 
osophical and  philological  culture  of  the  old  Classical 
?  school.  Their  true  place  and  value,  in  a  perfect  system 
of  education,  w^ill  be  fixed  when  we  shall  have  solved 
those  great  educational  problems  which,  in  their  present 
uncertainty,  and  considering  their  vast  importance  to  so- 
ciety, may  worthily  employ  and  well  reward  the  most 
powerful  and  aspiring  minds.  But  these  studies  at  least 
form  a  real  education,  with  something  that  may  interest, 
something  that  may  last,  something  that  may  set  the  stu- 
dent reflecting,  and  make  him  unwilling  to  live  a  mere 
life  of  idleness  by  the  sweat  of  other  men's  brows.  If  in 
them,  as  compared  with  severer  studies,  some  concession 
is  made  to  the  comparative  feebleness  of  the  principle  of 
industry  in  those  who  are  not  compelled  to  work  for  their 

*  On  reviewing  this  pnssnpc  I  fear  I  have  spoken  in  too  snnp;uinc  terms 
of  the  probable  effects  of  education  on  those  wlio  are  witliout  tlic  common 
motives  for  exertion. — Note  to  2il  edit. 


AN   INAUGURAL  LECTURE.  21 

bread  with  brain  or  band,  it  is  only  a  reasonable  recogni- 
tion of  the  real  facts  of  the  case,  to  which  all  ideals  of 
education,  as  well  as  of  politics,  must  bend.  The  difiicul- 
ties  of  education  necessarily  increase  when  it  has  to  do 
with  those  who  are  placed  by  birth  at  the  level  to  which 
other  men  by  labor  aspire,  and  who  are  heirs  to  wealth 
which  they  have  not  earned,  and  honor  which  they  have 
not  won. 

One  grand  advantage  the  English  system  of  property 
and  society  has  over  the  rival  system  of  the  Continent, 
and  it  is  an  advantage  which  our  new  scheme  of  educa- 
tion for  the  gentry  tends  directly,  and  we  may  say  infal- 
libly, to  improve.  The  connection  between  the  distribu- 
tion of  property,  especially  landed  property,  in  a  coun- 
try, and  its  political  institutions,  is  necessarily  close ;  and 
countries  of  peasant  proprietors  have  proved  hitherto  in- 
capable of  supporting  constitutional  government.*  Those 
countries  gravitate  toward  centralized  and  bureaucratic 
despotism  with  a  force  which  in  France,  after  many  years 
of  Parliamentary  liberty,  seems  to  have  decisively  re- 
sumed its  sway.  There  is  no  class  wealthy  and  strong 
enough  to  form  independent  Parliaments,  or  of  local  in- 
fluence sufficient  to  sustain  local  self-government  through 
the  country.  There  is  nothing  to  stand  between  the  peo- 
ple and  the  throne.  This  is  the  great  historic  service  of 
tlic  English  landed  gentry,  but  it  is  a  service  which  can 
not  be  well  or  safely  performed  without  a  political  edu- 
cation. Europe  is  filled  with  the  rivalry  between  the 
Constitutional  and  Imperialist  systems,  the  greatest  polit- 

*  This  remark  must  be  limited  to  the  monarcliical  nations  of  ICiiropc. — 
Note  to  2d  edit. 


22  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

ical  controversy  which  has  arisen  in  any  age.  Those 
who  would  watch  that  controversy  with  intelhgence,  and 
judge  it  rightly,  must  remember  that  Parliaments,  like 
other  institutions,  arc  good  only  as  they  arc  well  used. 
If  Parliaments  were  to  tax  and  legislate  as  ignorant  and 
bigoted  Parliaments,  the  blind  delegates  of  class  interests, 
have  taxed  and  legislated  in  evil  times,  the  case  of  the 
advocates  of  democratic  despotism  would  be  strong. 
Tyranny,  the  Imperialists  might  say,  is  an  evil ;  but  the 
worst  tyranny  of  the  worst  tyrant  is  short,  partial,  inter- 
mittent, and  it  falls  on  high  and  low  alilsie,  or  rather  on 
the  high  than  on  the  low.  There  is  no  tyranny  so  con- 
stant, so  searching,  so  hopeless,  no  tyranny  which  so  sure- 
ly makes  the  people  its  victims,  as  class  taxation  and 
class  law.  The  political  ascendency  which  the  gentry  in 
feudal  times  owed  to  arms  they  must  now  retain,  if  they 
retain  it,  by  superiority  of  intelligence,  and  by  making  it 
felt  that  their  government  is  a  government  of  reason  in 
the  interest  of  the  whole  people.  Conservatism  itself,  if 
it  were  the  special  function  of  Oxford  to  produce  that 
clement  of  opinion,  ought  for  its  own  best  i:)urposcs  to  be 
an  enlightened  Conservatism,  not  a  Conservatism  of  des- 
perate positions  and  ruinous  defeats.  We  may  be  on  the 
eve  of  social  as  well  as  political  change.  The  new  dis- 
tribution of  political  power,  which  all  parties  in  the  state 
appear  to  regard  as  near  at  hand,^'  will  certainly  alter  the 
character  of  legislation,  and  will  very  probably  draw  with 
it  an  alteration  of  those  laws  touching  the  settlement  and 
the  inheritance  of  property  by  which  great  estates  arc 
j)artly  held  together.  In  tliat  case,  Oxford  may  in  time 
♦  In  1  sr.o. 


AN"  INAUGURAL  LECTURE.  23 

cease  to  have  the  same  class  to  educate,  and  may  have, 
accordingly,  to  qualify  her  system  of  education.  But 
the  mission  of  a  University  is  to  society  as  it  is ;  and  the 
political  character  and  intelligence  of  the  English  gentry 
is,  and  will  be  for  a  long  time  to  come,  a  main  object  of 
our  system  and  a  principal  test  of  its  success. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  high  charac- 
ter and  the  high  intelligence  of  the  English  aristocracy 
and  gentry  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Their  lot  was  cast  in  an  evil  day,  when  the  deep-seated 
and  long- festering  division  between  Anglo-Catholicism 
and  Protestantism,  and  between  the  political  tendencies 
congenial  to  each,  was  destined,  almost  inevitably,  to 
break  out  in  a  civil  contest.  But  in  that  contest  the  gen- 
tlemen of  England  bore  themselves  so  that  their  country 
has  reason  to  be  proud  of  them  forever.  Nothing  could 
be  more  lofty  than  their  love  of  principles,  nothing  more 
noble  than  their  disregard  of  all  personal  and  class  inter- 
ests when  those  principles  were  at  stake.  The  age  was, 
no  doubt,  one  of  high  emotions,  such  as  might  constrain 
the  man  who  best  loved  his  ancestral  title  and  his  hered- 
itary lands  to  hold  them  well  lost  for  a  great  cause. 
But  it  appears  likely  that  education  had  also  played  its 
part.  The  nobility  and  gentry  as  a  class  seem  to  have 
been  certainly  more  highly  educated  in  the  period  of  the 
later  Tudors  and  the  earlier  Stuarts  than  in  any  other  pe- 
riod of  our  history.  Their  education  was  classical.  But 
a  classical  education  meant  then  not  a  gymnastic  exercise 
of  the  mind  in  philology,  but  a  deep  draught  from  what 
was  the  great,  and  almost  the  only  spring  of  philosophy, 
science,  history,  and  poetry  at  that  time.     It  is  not  to 


24  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

philological  exercise  that  our  earliest  Latin  grammar  ex- 
horts the  student,  nor  is  it  a  mere  sharpening  of  the  fac- 
ulties that  it  promises  as  his  reward.  It  calls  to  the 
study  of  the  language  wherein  is  contained  a  great  treas- 
ure of  wisdom  and  knowledge ;  and,  the  student's  labor 
done,  wisdom  and  knowledge  were  to  be  his  meed.  It 
was  to  open  that  treasure,  not  for  the  sake  of  philological 
niceties  or  beauties,  not  to  shine  as  the  inventor  of  a  ca- 
non or  the  emendator  of  a  corruj)t  passage,  that  the  early 
scholars  undertook  those  ardent,  lifelong,  and  truly  ro- 
mantic toils  which  their  massy  volumes  bespeak  to  our 
days — our  days  which  are  not  degenerate  from  theirs  in 
labor,  but  in  which  the'  most  ardent  intellectual  labor  is 
directed  to  a  new  prize.  Besides,  Latin  was  still  the  lan- 
guage of  literary,  ecclesiastical,  diplomatic,  legal,  academ- 
ical Europe ;  familiarity  with  it  was  the  first  and  most 
indispensable  accomplishment,  not  only  of  the  gentlemen, 
but  of  the  high-born  and  royal  ladies  of  the  time.  We 
must  take  all  this  into  account  when  we  set  the  claims 
of  classical  against  those  of  modern  culture,  and  balance 
the  relative  amount  of  motive  power  we  have  to  rely  on 
for  securing  industry  in  either  case.  In  choosing  the 
subjects  of  a  boy's  studies  you  may  use  your  own  discre- 
tion ;  in  choosing  the  subjects  of  a  man's  studies,  if  you 
desire  any  worthy  and  fruitful  efibrt,  you  must  choose 
such  as  the  world  values,  and  such  as  may  win  the  alle- 
giance of  a  manly  mind.  It  has  been  said  that  six 
months'  study  of  the  language  of  Schiller  and  Goethe 
will  now  open  to  the  student  more  high  enjoyment  than 
.^ix  years'  study  of  the  languages  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Jt  is  certain  that  six  mouths'  study  of  l^'runch  will  now 


AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  25 

open  to  the  student  more  of  Europe  than  six  years'  study 
of  that  which  was  once  the  European  tongue.  These  are 
changes  in  the  circumstances  and  conditions  of  education 
which  can  not  be  left  out  of  sight  in  deahng  with  the 
generality  of  minds.  Great  discoveries  have  been  made 
by  accident ;  but  it  is  an  accidental  discovery,  and  must 
be  noted  as  such,  if  the  studies  which  were  first  pursued, 
as  the  sole  key  to  wisdom  and  knowledge,  now  that  they 
have  ceased  not  only  to  be  the  sole,  but  the  best  key  to 
wisdom  and  knowledge,  are  still  the  best  instruments  of 
education. 

It  would  be  rash  to  urge  those  who  are  destined,  to  be 
statesmen  (and  some  here  may  well  by  birth  and  talent 
be  destined  to  that  high  calling)  to  leave  the  severer,  and 
therefore  more  highly-valued  training,  for  that  which  is 
less  valued  because  it  is  less  severe.  But  those  who  are 
to  be  statesmen  ought  to  undergo  a  regular  political  edu- 
cation, and  they  ought  to  undergo  it  before  they  are 
plunged  into  party,  and  forced  to  see  all  history,  all  so- 
cial and  constitutional  questions,  and  all  questions  of  leg- 
islation, through,  its  haze.  There  is  a  mass  of  informa- 
tion and  established  principles  to  be  mastered  before  a 
man  can  embark  usefully  or  even  honestly  in  public  life. 
The  knowledge  got  up  for  debating  societies,  though  far 
from  worthless,  is  not  sufficient.  It  is  necessarily  got  up 
with  the  view  of  maintaining  a  thesis ;  and  even  the  ora- 
tory so  formed,  being  without  pregnancy  of  thought  or 
that  mastery  of  language  which  can  only  be  acquired  by 
the  use  of  the  pen,  is  not  the  oratory  that  will  live.  Nor 
will  the  ancient  historians  and  the  ancient  writers  on  po- 
litical ))hilosophy  serve  the  turn.     The  classics  are  in- 

B 


26  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

deed  in  this,  as  in  other  departments,  a  wonderful  and 
precious  manual  of  humanity ;  but  the  great  questions 
of  political  and  social  philosophy  with  which  this  age 
has  to  deal — and  surely  no  age  ever  had  to  deal  with 
greater — have  arisen  in  modern  times,  and  must  be  stud- 
ied in  modern  writers.  The  great  problems  which  perplex 
our  statesmen  touching  the  rights  of  the  laboring  popu- 
lation and  the  distribution  of  political  power  among  all 
classes  of  the  people  were  completely  solved  for  the  an- 
cients by  slavery,  which  placed  at  once  out  of  the  pale 
of  political  existence  those  whose  capability  of  using 
rightly  political  power  is  now  the  great  and  pressing 
doubt.  The  problems  and  difficulties  of  the  representa- 
tive S3'stem  were  equally  unknown  to  a  state  which  was 
a  city,  and  all  whose  free  citizens  met  with  ease  to  de- 
bate and  vote  in  their  own  persons  in  the  public  place. 
So,  again,  with  all  the  great  questions  that  have  arisen 
out  of  the  relations  between  the  spiritual  and  the  tem- 
poral power  embodied  in  Church  and  State,  the  duty  of 
the  state  toward  religion.  Church  establishments,  tolera- 
tion, liberty  of  conscience.  So,  again,  with  the  question 
of  the  education  of  the  people,  which  was  simple  enough 
when  the  people  were  all  freemen,  supported  in  intellect- 
ual leisure  by  a  multitude  of  slaves.  In  the  history  of 
the  ancient  republics  we  see  indeed  all  the  political  mo- 
tives and  passions  at  work  in  their  native  form,  and 
through  a  medium  of  cr^-stal  clearness,  but  under  circum- 
stances so  different  that  few  direct  lessons  can  be  drawn. 
Compare  any  revolution  of  Athens,  Corcyra,  or  Eome,  its 
simple  springs  and  simple  passions,  with  the  vast  com- 
j)lexity  of  the  motives,  sentiments,  ideas,  theories,  aspira- 


AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  27 

tions,  wliicli  are  upon  the  scene  in  tlie  great  drama  of  the 
French  Eevolution.  New  political,  as  well  as  new  phjs-  )^ 
ical  maladies  are  set  np  from  time  to  time,  as  one  great 
crisis  succeeds  another  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Fa- 
natical persecution  was  the  deadly  offspring  of  the  Cru- 
sades ;  terrorism  of  the  frenzied  reign  of  the  Jacobins. 
Political  virtues,  though  the  same  in  essence,  assume  a  ,. 
deeper  character  as  history  advances.  The  good  Trajan 
forbade  Pliny,  as  procurator  of  Bithynia,  to  persecute  the 
Christians,  because  persecution  was  non  Jmjusce  sceculi; 
it  did  not  become  that  civilized  age.  But  how  far  re- 
moved is  this  cold  and  haughty  tolerance,  which  implicit- 
ly views  religion  as  a  question  of  police,  from  the  deep 
doctrine  of  liberty  of  conscience,  the  late  gain  of  a  world 
which,  after  ages  of  persecution,  martyrdom,  and  relig- 
ious war,  has  found — at  least  its  higher  and  purer  spirits 
have  found — that  true  religion  there  can  not  be  where 
there  is  not  free  allegiance  to  the  truth. 

Two  advantages  the  ancient  historians  have,  or  seem  \ 
to  have,  over  the  modern  as  instruments  of  education. 
The  first  is  that  they  are  removed  in  time  from  the  party 
feelings  of  the  present  day.  They  might  be  expected  to 
be  as  far  from  our  passions  as  they  are,  considering  the 
wide  interval  of  ages,  marvelously  near  to  our  hearts; 
and,  undoubtedly,  they  are  farther  from  our  passions  than 
the  historians  of  the  present  day.  Yet  even  to  those  se- 
rene and  lofty  peaks  of  the  Old  World  political  prejudice 
has  found  its  way.  The  last  great  history  of  Greece  is  at 
once  a  most  admirable  history  and  a  pamphlet  which 
some  may  think  less  admirable  in  favor  of  universal  suf- 
frage, vote  by  ballot,  and  popular  courts  of  law.     The 


28  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

history  of  Eomc,  and  of  the  Koman  Empire  especially, 
has  been  so  mucli  fixed  on  as  a  battle-ground,  though 
often  with  strange  irrelevancy,  by  the  two  great  parties 
of  the  present  day,  that  in  France  it  is  becoming  a  ques- 
tion of  high  police,  and  writers  are  liable  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  administrative  justice  for  taking  any  but  the 
Ca3sarean  side. 

The  second  advantage  of  the  classical  historians  is  their 
style.  Their  style,  the  style  at  least  of  those  we  read  here, 
undoubtedly  is  a  model  of  purity  and  greatness,  and  far 
be  it  from  us  to  disregard  style  in  choosing  books  of  edu- 
cation. To  appreciate  language  is  partly  to  command  it, 
and  to  command  beautiful  and  forcible  language  is  to 
have  a  key,  with  which  no  man  who  is  to  rule  through 
opinion  can  dispense,  to  the  heart  and  mind  of  man.  To 
be  the  master  of  that  talisman  you  need  not  be  its  slave. 
Nor  will  a  man  be  master  of  it  without  being  master  of 
better  things.  Language  is  not  a  musical  instrument  into 
which,  if  a  fool  breathe,  it  will  make  melody.  Its  tones 
are  evoked  only  by  the  spirit  of  high  or  tender  thought ; 
and  though  truth  is  not  always  eloquent,  real  eloquence 
is  always  the  glow  of  truth.  The  language  of  the  an- 
cients is  of  the  time  when  a  writer  sought  only  to  give 
plain  expression  to  his  thought,  and  when  thought  was 
fresh  and  young.  1  The  composition  of  tlie  ancient  his- 
torians is  a  model  of  simple  narrative  for  the  imitation 
of  all  time.  J  But  if  they  told  their  tale  so  simply  it  was 
partly  because  they  had  a  simple  talc  to  tell.  Such 
themes  as  Latin  Christianity,  European  Civilization,  the 
History  of  the  Reformation,  the  History  of  Europe  during 
the  French  licvolution,  are  not  so  easily  reduced  to  the 


AN"  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  29 

proportions  of  artistic  beauty,  nor  are  the  passions  they 
excite  so  easily  calmed  to  the  serenity  of  Sophoclean  art. 
My  friend  the  Professor  of  Poetry  may  be  right  in  saying 
that  our  great  age  of  art,  in  history  at  least,  is  not  yet 
fully  come.  The  subject  of  the  decline  of  Feudalism  and 
the  Papacy,  and  the  rise  of  Modern  Society,  is  not  yet 
rounded  off.  The  picture  of  that  long  struggle  may  be 
painted  by  a  calm  hand  when  the  struggle  itself  is  done. 
But  not  all  ancients  are  classics.  The  clumsiest  and  most 
prolix  of  modern  writers  need  not  fear  comparison  with 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  nor  the  dryest  and  most  life- 
less with  the  Hellenics.  Nor  are  all  moderns  devoid  of 
classical  beauty.  No  narrative  so  complicated  was  ever 
conducted  with  so  much  skill  and  unity  as  that  of  Lord 
Macaulay.  No  historical  painting  ever  was  so  vivid  as 
that  which  lures  the  reader  through  all  that  is  extrava- 
gant in  Carlyle.  Gibbon's  shallow  and  satirical  view  of 
the  Church  and  Churchmen  has  made  him  miss  the  grand 
action  and  the  grand  actors  on  the  stage.  But  turn  to 
the  style  and  structure  of  his  great  work,  its  condensed 
thought,  its  lofty  and  sustained  diction,  its  luminous 
grandeur  and  august  proportions,  reared  as  it  is  out  of  a 
heap  of  materials  the  most  confused  and  mean,  and  ask 
of  what  Greek  or  Eoman  edifice,  however  classical,  it  is 
not  the  peer?  In  all  those  sad  pages  of  the  history  of 
Oxford  there  is  none  sadder  than  the  page  which  records 
the  student -life  of  Gibbon.  The  Oxford  of  that  day  is 
not  the  Oxford  of  ours,  and  we  need  not  fear  once  and 
again  to  speak  of  it  with  freedom.  But  to  Oxford  arc, 
at  least,  partly  due  those  foul  words  and  images  of  evil 
which  will  forever  meet  the  eye  of  the  historical  student, 


so  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

passing,  as  the  historical  students  of  all  time  will  pass, 
over  that  stately  and  undecaying  arch  which  spans  the 
chaos  of  the  declining  empire  from  the  Old  World  to 
the  New. 

The  intrinsic  value  of  studies  is  a  distinct  thing  from 
their  educational  value,  though,  in  the  case  of  manly  ed- 
ucation, the  one,  as  I  have  ventured  to  submit,  is  deeply 
affected  by  the  other.  It  would  appear  that  to  be  avail- 
able for  the  higher  education  a  subject  must  be  traversed 
by  principles  and  capable  of  method ;  it  must  be  either  a 
science  or  a  philosophy,  not  a  mere  mass  of  facts  without 
"f—  principle  or  law.  In  my  next  lecture  I  shall  venture  to 
offer  some  reasons  for  believing,  in  despite  of  theories 
which  seem  in  the  ascendant,  that  histor\^  can  never  be  a 
science.  It  is,  however,  fast  becoming  a  philosophy,  hav- 
ing for  its  basis  the  tendencies  of  our  social  nature,  and 
for  the  objects  of  its  research  the  correlation  of  events, 
the  march  of  human  progress  in  the  race  and  in  the  sep- 
arate nations,  and  the  effects,  good  or  evil,  of  all  the  vari- 
ous influences  which  from  age  to  age  have  been  brought 
to  bear  on  the  character,  mind,  and  condition  of  man. 
This  process  is  being  now  rnpidl}'-  carried  on  through  the 
researches  of  various  schools  of  speculators  on  histor}^, 
from  the  metaphysical  school  of  llegel  to  the  positivist 
school  of  Comte ;  researches  which,  though  they  may  be 
often,  though  they  may  hitherto  always  have  been,  made 
under  the  perverse  guidance  of  theories  more  or  less 
one-sided,  crude,  or  flintastic,  are  yet  finding  a  chemistry 
through  their  alchemy,  and  bringing  out  with  their  he;!]) 
of  dross  grain  after  grain  of  sterling  gold.  Pending  the 
completion  of  this  process,  or  its  approach  to  completion. 


AN   INAUGUEAL   LECTUEE.  31 

I  venture  to  think  the  History  School  must  draw  largely 
for  its  educational  value  on  the  two  sciences  (they  should 
rather  be  called  philosophies)  which  are  associated  with 
History  in  the  School,  Jurisprudence  and  Political  Econ- 
omy. 

The  forms  and  practice  of  the  law,  the  art  of  the  advo- 
cate, can  not  be  studied  at  a  University.  Jurisprudence 
may  be  and  is  studied  in  Universities.  In  ours,  where 
its  shade  still  hovers,  it  once  flourished  so  vigorously  as 
to  threaten  less  lucrative  though  more  spiritual  studies 
with  extinction,  and  pointed  the  high  road  of  ambition  to 
mediaeval  youth.  The  Viner  foundation  seems  to  have 
been  intended  to  restore  its  energy  by  the  life-giving  vir- 
tue of  joractical  utility.  But  there  is  evidence  that  the 
Viner  foundation,  like  that  of  Modern  History  and  Mod- 
ern Languages,  was  received  with  some  jealousy  as  an 
intruder  on  the  old  studies,  and  it  failed  of  its  effect. 
Otherwise  Oxford,  perchance,  might  have  had  a  greater 
part  in  that  code  of  the  laws  of  free  England  which  is 
now  beginning  to  be  framed,  and  which  will  go  forth,  in- 
stinct with  the  spirit  of  English  justice,  to  contend  for  the 
allegiance  of  Europe  with  the  Imperial  code  of  France. 
In  International  Law  we  have  had  the  great  name  of 
Stowell,  the  genuine  offspring,  in  some  measure,  of  stud- 
ies pursued  here.  The  great  subject  of  International  Law 
was  once  connected  with  my  Chair.  It  is  now,  happily, 
in  separate  hands,  and  in  those  hands  it  is  united  with 
Diplomacy;  an  auspicious  conjunction,  if  we  ma}^  hope 
that  a  scliool  of  diplomatists  will  hence  arise  to  raise  di- 
plomacy forever  above  that  system  of  chicanery  and  in- 
trigue of  which  Talleyrand  was  the  evil  deity,  and  make 


32  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

it  the  instrument  of  international  justice.  Truly  great 
men  have  always  been  frank  and  honest  negotiators,  and 
frank  and  honest  negotiation  alone  becomes  a  truly  great 
people.  "He  had  no  foreign  policy,"  says  a  Frcncli 
statesman  of  a  great  English  minister,  "  but  peace,  good- 
will, and  justice  among  nations."  A  really  good  and  im- 
partial manual  of  international  law*  is  a  work  still  to  ha 
produced.  There  is  the  same  want  of  a  good  manual  of 
the  principles  of  jurisprudence;  the  principles  of  juris- 
prudence in  the  abstract,  and  the  comparative  jurispru- 
dence of  different  nations.  For  "want  of  this,  we  are  driv- 
en to  study  some  national  system  of  law,  cither  that  of 
the  Romans  or  of  our  own  country.  That  of  the  Romans 
is  somewhat  remote,  and  sometimes  veils  its  principles  in 
shapes  difficult  to  pierce,  except  to  a  student  versed  in 
Roman  historj-.  Our  own  is,  as  yet,  in  form  barbarous 
and  undigested.  But  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  really,  and 
not  only  in  forms  and  terms,  a  relic  of  feudalism,  it  cov- 
ers strong  rules  of  utility  and  justice,  the  work  of  the 
greatest  and  most  upright  tribunals  the  world  ever  saw. 
It  is  these  rules,  and  not  the  technicalities  or  antiquities 
of  English  law,  that  constitute  the  proper  subject  of  that 
part  of  our  examinations ;  especially  as  of  those  who  pass 
through  the  school,  fewer  probably  will  be  destined  for 
the  actual  profession  of  the  law  than  to  be  county  magis- 
trates, and  administer  plain  justice  to  the  people. 

Political  Economy,  though  once  accepted  by  the  Uni- 

*  I  do  not  mean  to  give  currency  to  the  sjiocial  jilirasc  international 
Itir,  wliicli  I  suspect  is  franglit  witli  dangerous  fallacy.  There  can  be  no 
law,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  where  there  is  no  legislator,  no  tri- 
bunal, no  means  of  giving  legal  cflTect  to  a  decision. — Note  to  2d  edition. 


AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  83 

versity  as  one  of  the  regular  subjects  of  this  Chair,  has 
but  one  foot,  as  it  were,  in  the  new  Examination  Statute. 
The  candidates  are  permitted  to  include  among  their  sub- 
jects the  great  work  of  Adam  Smith.  Few  will  think 
that  the  bounds  of  safe  discretion  are  exceeded  by  the 
permission  to  know  something  of  economical  science  thus 
accorded  to  students  destined,  many  of  them  by  their 
birth,  more  by  their  wealth  or  talent,  to  become  the  leg- 
islators of  a  great  commercial  country,  and  whose  errors 
in  economy  may  bring  dearth  of  bread  into  every  cot- 
tage, and  with  dearth  evils  that  arise  when  parent  and 
child  can  not  both  be  fed.  Political  Economy  is  still  the 
object  of  antipathies,  excusable  but  unfounded.  A  hy- 
pothetical science,  true  in  the  abstract,  but  not  applicable 
in  its  rigor  to  facts,  it  has  been  sometimes  too  rigorously 
applied ;  and  errors — I  believe  they  are  now  admitted  to 
be  errors — touching  the  relative  laws  of  population  and 
food,  though  they  originated  with  minds  animated  by  a 
sincere  love  of  man,  seemed  to  accuse  the  providence  and 
contradict  the  designs  of  God.  Political  Economy  is^ 
guilty  of  seeking  to  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  a  pau-  \ 
per  class.  Such  a  class  may  in  imagination  be  the  kneel- 
ing and  grateful  crowd  in  the  picture  among  whom  St. 
Martin  divides  his  cloak ;  imagination  may  even  endow 
them  with  finer  moral  perceptions  than  those  of  other 
men;  but  in  reality  they  arc  the  Lazaroni  who  sacked 
and  burned  with  Masaniello,  and  the  sans-culottcs  who 
butchered  with  Robespierre.  Political  Economy,  again, 
is  guilty — not  she  alone  is  guilty — of  pronouncing  that 
man  must  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  own  brow ; 
she  is  not  guilty  of  denying  alms  to  the  helpless  and  the 

B2 


34  AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

destitute.  "Dr.  Adam  Smith's  conduct  in  private  life," 
says  the  author  of  the  sketch  prefixed  to  his  great  work, 
"  did  not  behe  the  generous  principles  inculcated  in  his 
works.  Lie  was  in  the  habit  of  allotting  a  considerable 
part  of  his  income  to  offices  of  secret  charitj'.  Mr.  Stew- 
art mentions  that  he  had  been  made  acquainted  with 
some  very  affecting  instances  of  his  beneficence.  They 
were  all,  he  observes,  on  a  scale  much  beyond  what  might 
have  been  expected  from  his  fortune,  and  were  accom- 
panied with  circumstances  equally  honorable  to  the  deli- 
cacy of  his  feelings  and  the  liberality  of  his  heart."  It  is 
false  sentiment  to  talk  of  a  political  economist  as  though 
he  were  a  religious  teacher,  but  through  no  sermons  does 
the  spirit  of  true  humanity  breathe  more  strongly  than 
through  the  writings  of  Adam  Smith ;  nor  has  any  man 
in  his  way  more  effectually  preached  peace  and  good-will 
on  earth.  Neither  his  voice  nor  that  of  any  teacher  can 
put  mercy  into  the  heart  of  fanaticism  or  ambition,  but 
his  spirit  always  wrestles,  and  wrestles  hard  and  long, 
with  those  spirits  of  cruelty  to  save  the  world  from  war. 
Aorain,  no  rich  man  need  fear  that  he  will  learn  from  Po- 
litical  Economy  the  moral  sophism  that  luxury  may  be 
laudably  indulged  in  because  it  is  good  for  trade.  On 
the  contrary,  he  will  learn  to  distinguish  between  pro- 
ductive and  unproductive  consumption,  and  the  results 
of  each  to  the  community ;  and  he  will  have  it  brought 
home  to  his  mind  more  cfloctually,  perhaps,  than  by  any 
rhetoric,  that  if  he  does  live  in  luxury  and  indolence,  he 
is  a  burden  to  the  earth.  The  words,  "I  give  alms  best 
by  spending  largely,"  have  indeed  been  uttered,  and  they 
came  from  a  hard,  gross  heart.     But  it  was  the  heart  not 


AN   INAUGUEAL   LECTUKE.  35 

of  a  political  economist,  but  of  a  most  Christian  king. 
Those  words  were  the  answer  of  Louis  XIV.  to  Madame 
de  Maintenon  when  she  asked  him  for  alms  to  relieve  the 
misery  of  the  people — that  people  whom  the  ambition 
and  fanaticism  of  their  monarch  had  burdened  with  a  co- 
lossal debt,  brought  to  the  verge,  and  beyond  the  verge, 
of  fiimine,  and  forced  to  pour  out  their  blood  like  water 
on  a  hundred  fields  that  heresy  and  democracy  might  be 
extirpated,  and  that  the  one  true  religion  and  the  divine 
pattern  of  government  might  be  preached  to  all  nations 
with  fire  and  sword.  Once  more,  it  is  sujjposed  that  Po- 
litical Economy  sanctions  hard  dealings  between  class 
and  class,  and  between  man  and  man ;  that  it  encour- 
ages the  capitalist  to  use  men  as  "  hands,"  without  fel- 
low-feeling and  without  mercy ;  and  these  charges  are 
found  side  by  side  witli  the  sentimental  praise  of  that 
atrocious  system  of  Vagrancy  Laws  and  Statutes  of  La- 
borers by  which  expiring  feudalism  strove  to  bind  again 
its  fetters  on  the  half-emancipated  serf.  The  poetry  of 
the  whip,  the  branding-iron,  and  the  gibbet,  to  be  applied 
to  the  laborer  wandering  in  quest  of  a  better  market,  cer- 
tainly finds  as  little  response  in  the  dry  mind  of  Political 
Economy  as  the  poetry  of  bloody  persecutions  and  judi- 
cial murder.  But  those  who  wish  to  find  a  condemna- 
tion of  the  inhumanity  as  well  as  the  folly  of  overwork- 
ing and  underfeeding  the  laborer  will  not  have  to  seek 
far  before  they  find  it  in  the  pages  of  Adam  Smith. 
Adam  Smith,  indeed,  condemns  in  the  measured  language 
of  sober  justice;  and  he  takes  no  distinction,  such  as  we 
find  always  tacitly  taken  in  novels  and  poems  by  the 
Troubadours  of  the  landed  interest,  between  the  grinding 


36  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

manufacturer  and  tlio  grindiug  landlord.  But  perhaps 
bis  sentence  will  not  on  either  account  have  less  weight 
with  reasonable  men.  The  laws  of  the  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth  are  not  the  laws  of  duty  or  allec- 
tion.  But  they  arc  the  most  beautiful  and  wonderful  of 
the  natural  laws  of  God,  and  through  their  beauty  and 
their  wonderful  wisdom  they,  like  the  other  laws  of  na- 
ture which  science  explores,  are  not  without  a  poetry  of 
their  own.  Silently,  surely,  without  any  man's  taking 
thought,  if  human  folly  will  only  refrain  from  hindering 
them,  they  gather,  store,  dispense,  husband,  if  need  be, 
against  scarcity,  the  wealth  of  the  great  community  of 
nations.  They  take  from  the  consumer  in  England  the 
wages  of  the  producer  in  China,  his  just  wages ;  and  they 
distribute  those  wages  among  the  thousand  or  hundred 
thousand  Chinese  workmen  who  have  contributed  to  the 
production,  justly,  to  "the  estimation  of  a  hair,"  to  the 
estimation  of  a  fmencss  far  passing  human  thought. 
They  call  on  each  nation  with  silent  bidding  to  supply 
of  its  abundance  that  which  the  other  wants,  and  make 
all  nations  fellow-laborers  for  the  common  store;  and  in 
them  lies  perhaps  the  strongest  natural  proof  that  the 
earth  was  made  for  the  sociable  being,  man.  To  buy  in 
the  cheapest  and  sell  in  the  dearest  market,  the  supposed 
concentration  of  economical  selfishness,  is  simply  to  fulfill 
the  command  of  the  Creator,  who  provides  for  all  the 
wants  of  Uis  creatures  through  each  other's  help ;  to  take 
from  those  who  have  abundance,  and  to  carry  to  those 
who  have  need.  It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  erect 
trade  into  a  moral  agency ;  but  it  does  unwittingly  serve 
agencies  higher  than  itself,  and  make  one  heart  as  well  as 
one  liarvest  for  the  world. 


AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  3.7 

But,  though  the  philosophy  of  this  school  may,  for  the 
present,  be  drawn  mainly  from  its  Jurisprudence  and  Po- 
litical Economy,  and  these  will  be  its  most  substantial 
studies,  there  is  another  element,  which  must  be  supplied 
by  simple  narrative  history,  written  picturesquely  and  to 
the  heart.  That  element  is  the  ethical  element,  the  train- 
ing of  right  sympathies  and  pure  affections,  without 
which  no  system  of  education  can  be  jDerfect,  and  for 
want  of  which  mere  mathematical  or  scientific  training- 
appears  essentially  defective.  The  most  highly  devel- 
oped power  of  the  pure  intellect,  the  driest  light,  to  use 
Bacon's  phrase,  of  the  understanding,  will  make  a  great 
thinl^er,  but  it  will  not  make  a  great  man.  Statesmen 
formed  by  such  education  would  be  utterly  wanting  in 
emotion,  and  in  the  power  of  kindling  or  guiding  it  in 
others.  They  would  be  wanting  in  the  aspirations  which 
move  men  to  do  great  things.  History  in  this  new  school 
has  to  supply  the  place  both  of  the  ancient  historians  and 
the  poets  in  the  Classical  school ;  and  to  a  great  extent  it 
may  do  so.  And  perhaps  it  may  be  truly  said  that  Ox- 
ford, if  she  is  under  some  disadvantages,  possesses  some 
great  advantages  for  the  appreciation  of  historical  char- 
acter and  the  ethical  treatment  of  historj'-,  not  merely  as 
a  subject  of  education,  but  as  a  literary  pursuit,  and-that. 
she  may  on  this  ground  well  aspire  to  become  a^great 
school  of  histor}^  We  can  not  have  in  this  seat  of  learn- 
ing the  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  action  which  pro- 
duces such  histories  as  those  ofThucydides  or  Tacitus, 
or  even  as  that  of  Lord  Macaulay,  any  more  than  we  can 
have  the  knowledge  of  war  which  produces  such  a  his- 
tory as  tliat  of  Napier.     But  we  have  in  a  singular  de- 


38  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

grec  the  key  to  moral  and  spiritual  character  in  all  its 
varieties  and  in  all  its  aspects.  Oxford  gives  us  this  key 
partly  as  she  is  a  great  school  of  moral  philosophy,  part- 
ly from  events  otherwise  most  injurious  to  her  usefulness. 
Large  spiritual  experience,  deep  insight  into  character, 
ample  sympathies  —  these  at  least  the  University  has 
gained  by  that  great  storm  of  religious  controversy 
through  which  she  has  just  passed,  and  which  has  cast 
the  wrecks  of  her  most  gifted  intellects  on  every  shore. 
Such  gifts  go  far  to  qualify  their  possessor  for  writing 
the  history  of  many  very  important  periods,  provided 
only  that  they  are  combined  with  the  love  of  justice  and 
controlled  by  common  sense. 

I  have  mentioned  that  the  Modern  Languages  were 
once  united  with  Modern  History  in  this  foundation. 
They  have  now  separate  foundations,  but  the  two  studies 
can  not  be  divorced.  A  thorough  knowledge  of  histor}', 
even  of  the  histor}'-  of  our  own  country,  is  impossible 
without  the  power  of  reading  foreign  writers.  Each  na- 
tion, in  the  main,  writes  its  own  history  best;  it  best 
knows  its  own  land,  its  own  institutions,  the  relative  im- 
portance of  its  own  events,  the  characters  of  its  own  great 
men.  But  each  nation  has  its  peculiarities  of  view,  its 
prejudices,  its  self-love,  which  require  to  be  corrected  by 
the  impartial  or  even  hostile  views  of  others.  "We  arc 
indignant,  or  we  smile  at  the  religion  of  French  aggran- 
dizement, which  displays  itself  in  every  page  of  most 
French  historians,  and  at  the  constantly  recurring  intima- 
tion that  the  progress  of  civilization,  and  even  of  moral- 
ity in  the  world,  depends  on  the  perpetual  acquisition  of 
fresh  territory  and  fresh  diplomatic  influence  by  France. 


AN"   INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  39 

Perhaps  tliere  are  some  tilings  at  which  a  Frenchman 
might  reasonably  be  indignant  or  reasonably  smile  in  the 
native  historians  of  a  country  of  whose  greatness  we  may 
be  justly,  and  of  whose  beneficent  action  in  Europe  we 
may  be  more  justl}^,  proud.  Besides,  in  regard  to  our 
early  history  much  depends  upon  antiquarian  research, 
and  antiquarian  research  is  not  the  special  excellence  of 
our  practical  nation.  So  strongly  do  I  feel  that  the  orig- 
inal arrangement  by  which  Modern  History  and  Mod- 
ern Languages  were  united  was  the  right  one,  that  I  can 
not  refrain  from  expressing  a  hope  that  the  expediency 
of  restoring  that  arrangement  may  soon  come  under  the 
consideration  of  the  council,  and  that  one  of  the  most 
flourishing  and  most  practically  useful  of  our  depart- 
ments may  be  completely  incorporated  into  our  system 
by  becoming  a  portion  of  the  Modern  History  School, 

Of  the  importance  of  Physical  Science  to  the  student 
of  Modern  History  it  scarcely  becomes  me  to  speak.  All 
I  can  say  is,  that  I  have  reason  to  lament  my  own  igno- 
rance of  it  at  every  turn.  It  is  my  conviction  that  man 
is  not  the  slave,  but  the  lord,  of  the  material  world  ;  that 
the  spirit  moulds,  and  is  not  moulded  by,  the  clay.  I 
believe  that  nations,  like  men,  shape  their  own  destiny, 
let  nature  rough-hew  it  as  she  will.  But  nature  does 
rough-hew  the  destiny  of  nations,  and  the  knowledge  of 
her  workings  and  influences  as  they  bear  on  man  is  a 
most  essential  part  of  histor3^  The  next  generation  of 
historical  students  in  Oxford  will  reach,  by  the  aid  of 
this  knowledge,  what  those  of  my  generation  can  never 
attain.  The  words  of  Roger  Bacon  to  his  pupil,  Tit  me- 
liores  radices  egeris,  "You  will  strike  root  deeper  and  bear 


/ 


40  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

fruit  higher  than  your  teacher,"  may  be  repeated  by  each 
generation  of  intellect  to  that  which  is  at  once  its  pupil 
and  its  heir. 

The  range  of  the  student's  historical  reading  here  must 
necessarily  be  limited,  and  we  naturally  take  as  the  sta- 
ple of  it  the  history  of  our  own  country.  It  fortunately 
happens  that  the  history  of  our  own  country  is,  in  one 
important  respect,  the  best  of  all  historical  studies.  To 
say  nothing  of  our  claims  to  greatness,  no  nation  has 
ever  equaled  ours  in  the  unbroken  continuity  of  its  na- 
tional life.  The  institutions  of  France  before  the  Eevo- 
lution  are  of  little  practical  importance  or  interest  to  the 
Frenchman  of  the  present  day :  there  is  almost  as  great 
a  chasm  of  political  organization  and  political  sentiment 
between  feudal  France  and  the  France  of  Louis  XIV. 
The  French  Canadian,  the  surviving  relic  of  France  un- 
der the  old  monarchy,  is,  in  every  thing  but  race  and 
language,  a  widely  different  man  from  the  Frenchman  of 
Paris.  But  we  hear  of  questions  in  our  ^-oungest  colo- 
nies being  settled  by  reference  to  the  institutions  of  Ed- 
ward the  Confessor.  The  same  habits  of  local  self-gov- 
ernment which  are  so  much  at  the  root  of  our  political 
character  now,  held  together  English  society  in  the  coun- 
ty, the  hundred,  the  parish,  the  borough,  when  the  cen- 
tral government  was  dissolved  by  the  civil  wars  of  Ilen- 
ry  III.,  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  and  the  Great  Rebellion. 
It  fortunately  happens,  also,  that  the  main  interest  of  our 
history  lies  in  the  development  of  our  political  constitu- 
tion. England  has  always  been  a  religious  countr}',  both 
under  the  old  and  under  the  reformed  laith.  But  she 
has  not  been  the  parent  of  great  religious  movements, 


AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  41 

excepting  Wycliffism,  whicli  proved  abortive.  She  lias 
received  her  spiritual  impulses  mainly  from  -without. 
That  to  which  the  mind  of  the  nation  has  been  turned 
from  its  birth,  and  with  unparalleled  steadiness,  is  the 
working  out  of  a  political  constitution,  combining  Eo- 
man  order  with  Northern  liberty,  and  harmonizing  the 
freest  development  of  individual  mind  and  character 
with  intense  national  unity  and  unfailing  reverence  for 
the  law.  The  present  age  seems  likely  to  decide  wheth- 
er this  work,  so  full  of  the  highest  effort,  moral  as  well 
as  intellectual,  has  been  wrought  by  England  for  herself 
alone  or  for  the  world."  Political  greatness  is  not  the 
end  of  man,  nor  is  it  in  political  events  and  institutions 
that  the  highest  interest  of  history  lies.  But  when  wc 
arrive  at  the  region  of  the  highest  interest,  we  arrive  also 
at  the  region  of  the  deepest  divisions  of  opinion  and  of 
feeling.  The  English  Constitution  is  accepted  by  all  En- 
glishmen, and  its  development  may  be  traced  in  this 
Chair  without  treading  on  forbidden  ground.  Even  with 
regard  to  this  study,  indeed,  it  is  necessary  for  a  Profess- 
or of  History  to  warn  his  pupils  that  they  come  to  him 
for  knowledge,  not  for  opinions;  and  that  it  will  be  his 
highest  praise  if  they  leave  him,  with  increased  materials 
for  judgment,  to  judge  with  an  open  and  independent 
mind.  And,  happily,  in  studying  the  constitutional  his- 
tory of  England,  modern  or  media3val,  both  professor 
and  pupil  have  before  them  the  noblest  model  of  judicial 
calmness  and  inexorable  regard  for  truth  in  that  great 
historian  of  our  Constitution   whom   Oxford  produced, 

*  I  s]K'ak  of  the  substance,  not  of  the  forms  of  the  Coiistitiitiun. — Note 
to  2d  edit. 


42  AN  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

and  who  has  lately  been  taken  from  the  place  of  honor 
which  he  long  held  among  our  living  literary  worthies 
to  be  numbered  with  the  illustrious  dead. 

In  my  next  lecture  I  propose  to  speak  of  the  method 
of  studying  history.  In  this  I  have  ventured  to  plead 
for  support  and  encouragement,  and,  what  is  perhaps  most 
needed  of  all,  proper  guidance  for  our  Modern  Ilistory 
School.*  I  rest  my  plea  on  the  fact  that  there  is  a  class 
of  students  destined  to  perform  the  most  important  duties 
to  society  in  after  life  peculiarly  needing  education  to  dis- 
jDOse  and  enable  them  to  perform  those  duties,  and  whose 
education  as  a  class  has  hitherto  failed ;  a  fact  to  which 
I  point  with  less  hesitation,  because  I  am  persuaded  that 
the  sense  of  it  led  in  great  measure  to  the  institution  of 
the  Modern  Ilistory  School.  I  do  not  rest  my  plea  on 
any  particular  theory  of  education,  liberal  or  utilitarian, 
special  or  universal,  because  no  theory  of  education,  ra- 
tionally based  on  the  results  of  our  experience,  embracing 
the  subject  in  all  its  aspects,  and  determining  the  intrinsic 
value  of  different  studies,  their  relative  effect  on  the  pow- 
ers of  the  mind  and  on  the  character,  and  the  motives  to 
industry  which  can  be  relied  on  in  the  case  of  each,  has 
yet  been  laid  before  the  world.     Let  us  look  the  jQict  in 

*  I  confess  I  liavc  been  induced  to  publish  this  lecture,  somewhat  late 
and  contrary  to  my  original  intention,  by  the  hope  that  I  may  draw  the 
attention  of  the  University  to  the  state  of  the  School  of  Law  and  Modern 
Ilistory,  left  as  it  is  without  that  superintendence  which  in  its  infancy  it 
must  require,  and  little  cncouragod  by  the  colleges,  even  All  Souls  having 
apparently  set  aside  the  I'arliamentary  ordinance  by  which  its  fcllowshijis 
are  devoted  to  the  encouragement  of  llic  subjects  rccogni/cd  in  this  school. 

[Written  in  1859,  since  which  time  some  colleges  have  heartily  ad(i])tcd 
the  study.— Note  to  2d  edit.] 


AN  INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  43 

the  face.  We  in  this  place  differ  widely  in  our  opinions 
respecting  education,  and  our  difference  of  opinions  re- 
sjDecting  education  is  intimately  connected  with  our  dif- 
ference of  opinions  respecting  deeper  things.  In  this, 
Oxford  is  only  the  reflection  of  a  world  torn  by  contro- 
versies the  greatest  perhaps  which  have  ever  agitated 
mankind.  But  we  are  all  agreed  in  the  desire  to  send 
out,  if  we  can,  good  landlords,  just  magistrates,  upright 
and  enlightened  rulers  and  legislators  for  the  English 
people.  "We  are  all  agreed  in  desiring  that  the  rich  men 
who  are  educated  at  Oxford  should  be  distinguished 
above  other  rich  men  by  their  efforts  to  tread  what  to 
every  rich  man  is  the  steep  path  of  social  duty.  And  if 
we  did  not  all  vote  for  the  foundation  of  a  School  of  Law 
and  Modern  History  with  a  view  to  the  better  education 
of  the  gentrjT-,  we  are  all  bound  to  acknowledge  and  sup- 
port it  now  that  it  is  founded.  It  is  hard  to  adapt  me- 
diaeval and  clerical  colleges  to  the  purposes  of  modern 
and  lay  education.  It  is  hard,  too,  to  break  through  the 
separate  unity  of  the  college,  a  strong  bond  as  it  has  been, 
not  only  of  affectionate  association,  but  of  duty.  Yet  I 
can  not  abandon  the  hope  that  whatever  steps  may  prove 
necessary  to  provide  regular  and  competent  instruction 
in  Modern  History  and  the  cognate  subjects  will  be  taken 
by  the  University  in  fulfillment  of  its  promise  to  the  na- 
tion. I  feel  still  more  confident  that  the  co-operation  of 
the  colleges  with  the  staff"  of  the  University  for  this  pur- 
pose will  not  be  impeded  by  jealousies  between  different 
orders,  which  were  never  very  rational,  and  which  ma}'- 
now  surely  be  numbered  with  the  past.  We  have  all 
one  work.     The  professor  is  henceforth  the  colleague  of 


44  AN   INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

the  tutor  in  tlie  duties  of  University  education.  "What 
he  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  is  an  antiquarian  question. 
It  is  clear  that  since  that  time  bis  position  and  duties 
have  greatly  changed.  The  modern  press  is  the  raedia)- 
val  professor,  and  it  is  absurd  to  think  that  in  these  days 
of  universal  mental  activity  and  universal  publication 
men  can  be  elected  or  appointed  by  convocation  or  by  the 
crown  to  head  the  march  of  thought  and  give  the  world 
new  truth.  Oxford  herself  is  no  longer  what  a  Univer- 
sity was  in  the  Middle  Ages.  No  more,  as  in  that  most 
romantic  epoch  of  the  history  of  intellect,  will  the  way- 
worn student,  who  had  perhaps  begged  his  way  from  the 
cold  shade  of  feudalism  to  this  solitary  point  of  intellect- 
ual light,  look  down  upon  the  city  of  Ockham  and  Roger 
Bacon  as  the  single  emporium  of  all  knowledge,  the  single 
gate  to  all  the  paths  of  ambition,  with  the  passionate  rev- 
erence of  the  pilgrim,  with  the  joy  of  the  miner  who  has 
found  his  gold.  The  functions  and  duties  of  Oxford  arc 
humbler,  though  still  great.  And  so  are  those  of  all  who 
are  engaged  in  her  service,  and  partake  the  responsibili- 
ties of  her  still  noble  trust.  To  discharge  liiithfully  my 
portion  of  those  duties,  with  the  aid  and  kind  indulgence 
of  those  on  whose  aid  and  kind  indulgence  I  must  always 
lean,  will  be  my  highest  ambition  while  I  hold  this  Chair. 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 


I. 

The  first  question  whicli  tlie  student  of  history  has 
now  to  ask  himself  is,  Whether  history  is  governed  by 
necessary  laws  ?  If  it  is,  it  ought  to  be  written  and  read 
as  a  science.  It  may  be  an  imperfect  science  as  yet,  ow- 
ing to  the  complexity  of  the  phenomena,  the  incomplete- 
ness of  the  observations,  the  want  of  a  rational  method ; 
but  in  its  nature  it  is  a  science,  and  is  capable  of  being' 
brought  to  perfection. 

History  could  not  be  studied  as  a  whole — there  could 
be  no  philosophy  of  history — till  we  thoroughly  felt  the 
unity  of  the  human  race.  That  great  discovery  is  one 
which  rebukes  the  pretensions  of  individual  genius  to  be 
the  sole  source  of  progress,  for  it  was  made,  not  by  one 
man,  but  by  mankind.  Kindled  by  no  single  mind,  it 
spread  over  the  world  like  the  light  of  morning,  and  the 
prism  must  be  the  work  of  a  cunning  hand  which  could 
discriminate  in  it  the  blended  rays  of  duty,  interest,  and 
affection.  First,  perhaps,  the  greatness  of  the  Eoman 
character  broke  through  the  narrow  exclusiveness  of 
savage  nationality  by  bending  in  its  hour  of  conquest  to 
the  intellect  of  conquered  Greece ;   nobler  in  this  than 


46  ox  TUE   STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

Greece  licrself,  who,  with  all  her  philosophy,  talked  to 
the  last  of  Greek  and  barbarian,  and  could  never  see  the 
man  bcncatli  the  slave.  First,  perhaps,  on  the  mind  of 
the  Eoman  Stoic,  the  great  idea  of  the  community  of  man, 
with  its  universal  riglits  and  duties,  distinctly  though 
faintly  dawned ;  and  therefore  to  the  Roman  Stoic  it  was 
given  to  be  the  real  author  of  Rome's  greatest  gift,  the 
science  of  universal  law.  Christianity  broke  down  far 
more  thoroughly  the  barriers  between  nation  and  nation, 
between  freeman  and  slave,  for  those  who  were  within 
her  pale.  Between  those  within  and  those  without  the 
pale  she  put  perhaps  a  deeper  and  wider  gulf;  not  in  the 
times  of  the  apostles,  but  in  the  succeeding  times  of  fierce 
conflict  with  heathen  vice  and  persecution,  and  still  more 
in  the  fanatical  and  crusading-  Middle  Aces.  The  resur- 
rection  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  the  revival  of  their  litera- 
ture made  the  world  one  again,  and  united  at  once  the 
Christian  to  the  heathen,  and  the  present  to  the  remotest 
past.  The  heathen  moralist,  teaching  no  longer  in  the 
disguise  of  a  school  divine,  but  in  his  own  person  ;  the 
heathen  historian  awakening  Christian  sympathies ;  the 
heathen  poet  touching  Christian  hearts,  showed  that  in 
morality,  in  sympathy,  in  heart,  though  not  in  faith,  the 
Christian  and  the  heathen  were  one.  That  sense  of  uni- 
ty, traversing  all  distinctions  between  Christian  and  pa- 
gan, and  between  the  churches  of  divided  Christendom, 
has  grown  with  the  growth  of  philosophy,  science,  juris- 
prudence, literature,  art,  the  common  and  indivisible  her- 
itage of  man.  A  more  enlightened  and  humane  diplo- 
macy and  the  gradual  ascendency  of  international  law 
have  strengthened  the  sense  of  common   interests  and 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  47 

universal  justice  from  which  they  sprang;  and  France, 
the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Church,  has  crusaded  to  save 
the  Crescent  from  the  aggression  of  the  Cross.  Com- 
merce, too,  breaking  link  by  link  its  media3val  fetters, 
has  helped  to  knit  nations  together  in  sympathy  as  well 
as  by  interest,  and  to  remove  the  barriers  of  the  dividing 
mountains  and  the  estranging  sea.  There  was  needed, 
besides,  a  great  and  varied  range  of  recorded  history  to 
awaken  thoroughly  the  historic  sense,  to  furnish  abund- 
ant matter  for  historical  reflection,  and  to  arouse  a  lively 
curiosity  as  to  the  relation  between  the  present  and  the 
past.  There  was  needed  a  habit  of  methodical  investiga- 
tion with  a  view  to  real  results,  of  which  physical  science 
is  the  great  school.  There  was  needed  a  knowledge, 
which  could  only  come  from  the  same  source,  of  the  phys- 
ical conditions  and  accessories  of  man's  estate.  These 
conditions  fulfilled,  the  philosophy  of  history  was  born, 
and  its  birth  opens  a  new  realm  of  thought,  full,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt,  of  great  results  for  man.  Vico,  indeed, 
was  the  precursor  of  this  philosophy.  In  his  mind  first 
arose  the  thought,  awakened  by  the  study  of  Greek  and 
Roman  antiquity,  that  history  should  be  read  as  a  whole, 
and  that  this  whole  might  have  a  law.  But  the  law  he 
imagined,  that  of  revolving  cycles  of  men  and  events, 
was  wild  and  fruitless  as  a  dream. 

It  was  natural  that  physical  science  should  claim  the 
philosophy  of  history  as  a  part  of  her  own  domain,  that 
she  should  hasten  to  plant  her  flag  upon  this  newly-dis- 
covered land  of  thought.  Flushed  with  unhoped  -  for 
triumphs,  why  should  she  not  here  also  triumph  beyond 
hope?     She  scorns  to  see  her  advance  arrested  by  tlic 


48  ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

imagined  barrier  between  the  physical  and  moral  world. 
The  phenomena  of  man's  life  and  history  are  complicated, 
indeed,  more  complicated  even  than  those  of  the  tides  or 
of  the  weather ;  but  the  phenomena  of  the  tides  and  of 
the  weather  have  yielded  or  are  yielding  to  close  obser- 
vation, well  recorded  statistics,  and  patient  reasoning; 
why  should  not  the  phenomena  of  man's  actions  yield 
too,  and  life  and  history  be  filled,  like  all  the  world  be- 
sides, with  the  calm  majesty  of  natural  law?  It  is  a 
grand  thought ;  and  at  this  time  it  finds  not  only  minds 
open  to  its  grandeur,  but  hearts  ready  to  welcome  it. 
Western  Christendom  has  long  been  heaving  with  a 
mighty  earthquake  of  opinion,  only  less  tremendous  than 
that  of  the  Keformation  because  there  was  no  edifice 
so  vast  and  solid  as  medioeval  Catholicism  to  be  laid 
low  by  the  shock.  Some  their  fear  of  this  earthquake 
has  driven  to  take  refuge  in  ancient  fanes,  and  by  altars 
whose  fires  are  cold.  -  Others  are  filled  with  a  Lucretian 
longing  to  repose  under  the  tranquil  reign  of  physical 
necessity,  to  become  a  part  of  the  material  world,  and  to 
cast  their  perplexities  on  the  popes  and  hierarchs  of  sci- 
ence and  her  laws.  Only  let  them  be  sure  that  what  is 
august  and  tranquilizing  in  law  really  belongs  to  science, 
and  that  it  is  not  borrowed  by  her  from  another  source. 
Let  them  be  sure  that  in  putting  off  the  dignity,  they  also 
put  off  the  burden  of  humanity.  If  man  is  no  higher  in 
his  destinies  than  the  beast  or  the  blade  of  grass,  it  may 
be  better  to  be  a  beast  or  a  blade  of  grass  than  a  man. 

History  is  made  u])  of  human  actions,  whether  those 
actions  arc  political,  social,  religious,  military,  or  of  any 
other  kind.     The  foundinfj  and  maintaining  of  institu- 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  49 

tions,  the  jDassing  and  keeping  of  laws,  the  erecting  and 
preserving  of  churclies  and  forms  of  worship,  the  institu- 
ting and  observing  of  social  customs,  may  be  all  resolved 
into  the  element  of  action.  So  may  all  intellectual  his- 
tory, whether  of  speculation,  observation,  or  composition, 
with  their  products  and  effects,  the  bending  of  the  mind 
to  thought  being  in  every  respect  as  much  an  action  as 
the  moving  of  the  hand.  What  wc  call  national  actions 
are  the  actions  of  a  multitude  of  men  acting  severally 
though  concurrently,  and  with  all  the  incidents  of  several 
action ;  or  they  are  the  actions  of  those  men  who  are  in 
power.  Whatever  there  is  in  action,  therefore,  will  be 
every  where  present  in  history,  and  the  founders  of  the 
new  physical  science  of  history  have  to  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  their  science  in  what  seems  the  quicksand  of 
free-will. 

This  difiiculty  they  have  to  meet  either  by  showing  that 
free-will  is  an  illusion,  or  by  showing  that  its  presence 
throughout  history  is  compatible,  in  spite  of  all  appear- 
ances, with  the  existence  of  an  exact  historical  science. 

They  take  both  lines.  Some  say  "  Free-will  is  an  illu- 
sion, or,  at  least,  we  can  not  be  sure  that  it  is  real.  Our 
only  knowledge  of  it  is  derived  from  consciousness,  and 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  consciousness  is  a  facultj^'. 
It  is  very  likely  only  a  state  or  condition  of  the  mind. 
Besides,  the  mind  can  not  observe  itself:  it  is  not  in  na- 
ture that  the  same  thing  should  be  at  once  observer  and 
observed." 

It  signifies  little  under  what  technical  head  wc  class 
consciousness.  The  question  is,  from  what  source  do 
those  who  repudiate  its  indications  derive  the  knowledge 

C 


50  ox   TUE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

of  their  own  existence  ?  From  what  other  source  do  they 
derive  the  knowledge  that  their  words,  the  very  words 
they  use  in  this  denial,  correspond  to  their  thoughts,  and 
will  convey  their  thoughts  to  others?  The  mind  may 
not  be  able  to  place  itself  on  the  table  before  it,  or  look 
at  itself  through  a  microscope,  and  there  may  be  nothing 
else  in  nature  like  its  power  of  self-observation  ;  possibly 
the  term  self-observation,  being  figurative,  may  not  ade- 
quately represent  the  fact,  and  may  even,  if  pressed,  in- 
volve some  confusion  of  ideas.  But  he  is  scarcely  a  i)hi- 
losopher  who  fancies  that  the  peculiarity  of  a  mental  lact, 
or  our  want  of  an  adequate  name  for  it,  is  a  good  reason 
for  setting  the  fact  aside.  The  same  writers  constantly 
speak  of  the  phenomena  of  mind,  so  that  it  appears  there 
must  be  some  phenomena  of  mind  which  they  have  been 
able  to  observe.  In  whose  mind  did  they  see  these  phe- 
nomena? Did  they  see  them  in  the  minds  of  others,  or, 
by  self-observation,  in  their  own  ? 

But  others  say,  "We  admit  the  reality  of  free-will; 
but  the  opposite  to  free-will  is  necessity,  and  to  form  the 
foundation  of  our  science,  we  do  not  want  necessity,  but 
only  causation,  and  the  certainty  which  causation  carries 
with  it :  necessity  is  a  mysterious  and  embarrassing  word; 
let  us  put  it  out  of  the  question."  But  then,  if  necessity 
docs  not  mean  the  certain  connection  between  cause  and 
effect,  what  is  it  to  mean  ?  Is  the  word  to  be  sent  adrift 
on  the  dictionary  witliout  a  meaning?  The  rooted  con- 
tradiction in  our  minds  between  the  notion  of  freedom 
of  action,  and  that  of  being  bound  by  the  chain  of  certain 
causation,  is  not  to  be  removed  merely  by  denying  us  the 
use  of  the  term  by  which  the  contradiction  is  expressed. 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  51 

But  again  they  say,  "You  may  as  well  get  over  this 
apparent  contradiction  in  life  and  history  between  free- 
will and  certain  science,  for  you  must  get  over  the  appar- 
ent contradiction  in  life  and  history  between  free-will  and 
the  certain  omniscience  of  the  Creator,  which  compre- 
hends human  actions,  and  which  you  acknowledge  as 
part  of  your  religious  faith."  No  doubt  this,  though  an 
argumentum  ad  hominein,  is  perfectly  relevant,  because  the 
objection  it  meets  is  one  in  the  minds  of  those  to  whom 
it  is  addressed;  and  I  think  it  has  been  justly  observed 
that  it  can  not  be  answered  by  distinguishing  between 
foreknowledge  and  after-knowledge,  because  its  force  lies 
in  the  certainty  which  is  common  to  all  knowledge,  not 
in  the  relation  of  time  between  the  knowledge  and  the 
thing  known.  The  real  answer  seems  to  be  this,  that  the 
words  omniscience,  omnipotence,  omnipresence,  though 
positive  in  form,  are  negative  in  meaning.  They  mean 
only  that  we  know  not  the  bounds  of  the  knowledge, 
power,  or  presence  of  God.  What  we  do  know,  if  we 
know  any  thing,  is  that  His  presence  is  not  such  as  to 
annihilate  or  absorb  our  separate  being,  nor  His  knowl- 
edge and  power  such  as  to  overrule  or  render  nugatory 
our  free-will. 

Nor  will  it  avail  the  constructors  of  a  science  of  Man 
to  cite  the  moral  certainty  with  which  we  predict  the 
conduct  of  men  or  nations  whose  characters  are  settled. 
This  settled  character  was  formed  by  action,  and  the  ac- 
tion by  which  it  was  formed  was  free,  so  that  the  uncer- 
tain element  which  baffles  science  is  not  got  rid  of,  but 
only  thrown  back  over  a  history  or  a  life. 

Then  they  analyze  action,  and  say  it  follows  its  motive, 


52  ON  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

uud  may  be  predicted  from  the  motive,  just  as  any  other 
consequent  in  nature  follows  and  may  be  predicted  from 
its  antecedent.  It  follows  a  motive,  but  how  are  we  to 
tell  u-hich  motive  it  will  follow?  Action  is  a  choice  be- 
tween motives;  even  in  our  most  habitual  acts  it  is  a 
choice  between  acting  and  rest.  The  only  ground  we 
have  for  calling  one  motive  the  strongest  is  that  it  has 
prevailed  before ;  but  the  motive  which  has  prevailed  be- 
fore, and  prevailed  often  and  long,  is  set  aside  in  every 
great  change  of  conduct,  individual  or  national,  by  an 
effort  of  the  will,  for  which,  to  preserve  the  chain  of 
causation  and  the  science  founded  on  that  chain,  some 
other  antecedent  must  be  found. 

Action,  we  said,  was  a  choice  between  motives.  It  is 
important  in  this  inquiry  to  observe  that  it  is  a  choice 
between  them,  not  a  compound  or  a  resultant  of  them  all ; 
so  that  a  knowledge  of  all  the  motives  present  at  any 
time  to  the  mind  of  a  man  or  nation  would  not  enable 
us  to  predict  the  action  as  we  predict  the  result  of  a  com- 
bination of  chemical  elements  or  mechanical  forces.  The 
motive  which  is  not  acted  on  goes  for  nothing;  and  as 
that  motive  may  be  and  often  is  the  one  which — accord- 
ing to  the  only  test  we  have,  that  of  the  man's  previous 
actions — is  the  strongest,  we  see  on  what  sort  of  founda- 
tion a  science  of  action  and  history  must  build. 

When  the  action  is  done,  indeed,  the  connection  be- 
tween it  and  its  motive  becomes  necessary  and  certain, 
and  we  may  argue  backward  from  action  to  motive  with 
all  the  accuracy  of  science.  Finding  at  Rome  a  law  to 
encourage  tyrannicide,  we  arc  certain  that  there  had  been 
tyrants  at  Rome,  though  there  is  nothing  approaching  to 
historical  evidence  of  the  tyranny  of  Tarquin. 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  53 

Those  who  would  found  history  or  ethics  on  a  neces- 
sarian, or,  if  they  will,  a  causal  theory  of  action,  have 
three  things  to  account  for:  our  feeling  at  the  moment 
of  action  that  we  are  free  to  do  or  not  to  do ;  our  ap- 
proving or  blaming  ourselves  afterward  for  having  done 
the  act  or  left  it  undone,  which  implies  that  we  were 
free ;  and  the  approbation  or  blame  of  each  other,  which 
implies  the  same  thing.  I  do  not  see  that  they  even 
touch  any  of  these  problems  but  the  first.  They  do  not 
tell  us  whether  conscience  is  an  illusion  or  not ;  nor,  if 
it  is  not  an  illusion,  do  they  attempt  to  resolve  for  us  the 
curious  question  what  this  strange  pricking  in  the  heart 
of  a  mere  necessary  agent  means.  They  do  not  explain 
to  us  why  we  should  praise  or  blame,  reward  or  punish 
each  other's  good  or  bad  actions,  any  more  than  the  good 
or  bad  effects  of  any  thing  in  the  material  world ;  why 
the  virtues  and  vices  of  man  are  to  be  treated  on  a  total- 
ly different  footing  from  the  virtues  of  food  or  the  vices 
of  poison.  Praise  and  blame  they  do — praise  as  heartily 
and  blame  at  least  as  sharply  as  the  rest  of  the  world ; 
but  they  do  not  tell  us  why.  We  must  not  be  deceived 
by  the  forms  of  scientific  reasoning  when  those  who  use 
them  do  not  face  the  facts. 

Great  stress  is  laid  by  the  Necessarians  on  what  are 
called  moral  statistics.  It  seems  that,  feel  as  free  as  wc 
may,  our  will  is  bound  by  a  law  compelling  the  same 
number  of  men  to  commit  the  same  number  of  crimes 
within  a  certain  cycle.  The  cycle,  curiously  enough,  co- 
incides with  the  period  of  a  year  which  is  naturally 
selected  by  the  Eegistrar  General  for  his  reports.  But, 
first,  the   statistics  tendered  arc  not  moral,  but  legal. 


54  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

They  tell  us  only  the  outward  act,  not  its  inward  moral 
character.  They  set  down  alike  under  Murder  the  act 
of  a  Eush  or  a  Palmer,  and  the  act  of  an  Othello.  Sec- 
ondly, w^e  are  to  draw  some  momentous  inferences  from 
the  uniformity  of  the  returns.  How  far  are  they  uni- 
form ?  M.  Quetelet  gives  the  number  of  convictions  in 
France  for  the  years  1826,  7,  '8,  '9,  severally  as  4348, 
4236,  4551,  4475.  The  similarity  is  easily  accounted  for 
by  that  general  uniformity  of  human  nature  which  we 
all  admit.  How  is  the  difference,  amounting  to  more 
than  300  between  one  year  and  the  next,  to  be  accounted 
for  except  by  free-will  ?  But,  thirdly,  it  will  be  found 
that  these  statistics  are  unconsciously,  but  effectually, 
garbled.  To  prove  the  law  of  the  uniformity  of  crime, 
periods  are  selected  when  crime  was  uniform.  Instead 
of  four  years  of  the  Restoration,  in  which  we  know  very 
well  there  was  no  great  outburst  of  wickedness,  give  us 
a  table  including  the  civil  war  between  the  Burgundians 
and  the  Armagnacs,  the  St.  Bartholomew,  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  or  the  days  of  June,  1848.  It  will  be  said,  per- 
haps, that  this  was  under  different  circumstances ;  but  it 
is  a  very  free  use  of  the  term  "circumstance"  to  include 
in  it  all  the  evil  and  foolish  actions  of  men  which  lead 
to,  or  are  committed  in,  a  sanguinary  revolution.  Social 
and  criminal  statistics  are  most  valuable  ;  the  commence- 
ment of  their  accurate  registration  will  probably  be  a 
great  epoch  in  the  history  of  legislation  and  government; 
but  the  reason  why  they  are  so  valuable  is  that  they  are 
not  fixed  by  necessity,  as  the  Necessarians  allege  or  in- 
sinuate, but  variable,  and  may  be  varied  for  the  better  by 
the  wisdom  of  governments — governments  which  Neccs- 


ON  THE   STUDY  OF  HISTORY.  55 

sarians  are  always  exhorting  to  reform  tliemselves,  in- 
stead of  showing  how  their  goodness  or  badness  neces- 
sarily arises  from  the  climate  or  the  food.  -If  the  statist- 
ics were  fixed  by  necessity,  to  collect  them  would  be  a 
mere  indulgence  of  curiosity,  like  measuring  all  the  hu- 
man race  when  we  could  not  add  a  cubit  to  their  stature. 

It  is  important,  when  people  talk  of  calculating  the 
probabilities  and  chances  of  human  action  on  these  sta- 
tistics, to  guard  against  a  loose  use  (which  I  think  I  have 
seen  somewhere  noted)  of  the  words  probability  and 
chance.  Probability  relates  to  human  actions,  which  can 
not  be  calculated  unless  you  can  find  a  certain  antece- 
dent for  the  will.  Chance  is  mere  ignorance  of  physical 
causes ;  ignorance  in  what  order  the  cards  will  turn  up, 
because  we  are  ignorant  in  what  order  they  are  turned 
down;  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  by  what  manipulation, 
out  of  mere  ignorance,  knowledge  can  be  educed.  It  is 
worth  remarking,  also,  that  an  average  is  not  a  law ;  not 
only  so,  but  the  taking  an  average  rather  implies  that  no 
law  is  known. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  all  must  give  way  to  a  law  gather- 
ed by  fair  and  complete  induction  from  the  facts  of  his- 
tory. It  is  perhaps  not  so  clear  why  knowledge  drawn 
from  within  ourselves  should  give  way  to  knowledge 
drawn  from  without.  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  we  may 
pronounce  at  once  that  a  complete  induction  from  the 
facts  of  history  is  impossible.  History  can  not  furnish 
its  own  inductive  law.  An  induction,  to  be  sound,  must 
take  in,  actually  or  virtually,  all  the  facts.  But  history 
is  unlike  all  other  studies  in  this,  that  she  never  can 
have,  actually  or  virtually,  all  the  facts  before  her.    What 


56  ox  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

is  past  she  knows  in  part;  wbat  is  to  come  she  knows 
not,  and  can  never  know.  The  scroll  from  which  she 
reads  is  but  half  unrolled;  and  what  the  other  half  con- 
tains, what  even  the  next  line  contains,  no  one  has  yet 
been  able  to  foretell.  Prediction,  the  crown  of  all  sci- 
ence, the  new  science  of  Man  and  Ilistory  has  not  ven- 
tured to  :pRt  on.  That  prerogative,  which  is  the  test  of 
her  legitimacy,  she  has  not  yet  ventured  to  exert. 

Science,  indeed,  flir  from  indicating  that  the  materials 
for  the  great  induction  are  complete,  would,  if  any  thing, 
rather  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  human  race  and  its  his- 
tory are  young.  The  vast  length  of  geologic  compared 
with  the  shortness  of  historic  time,  whispers  that  the 
drama  for  which  the  stage  was  so  long  preparing  must 
have  many  acts  still  to  come. 

This  ignorance  of  what  is  to  come  destroys,  it  would 
seem,  among  other  inductive  theories  of  history,  the  fa- 
mous one  of  Comte,  who  makes  the  course  of  history  to 
be  determined  by  the  progress  of  science  through  its 
three  stages,  "Theological,"  "Metaphysical,"  and  "Posi- 
tive ;"  "  Positive"  having,  let  us  observe,  a  double  mean- 
ing, atheistical  and  sound,  so  that  the  use  of  it,  in  effect, 
involves  a  continual  begging  of  the  question.  IIow  can 
M. Comte  tell  that  the  "Positive"  era  is  the  end  of  all? 
IIow  can  he  tell  that  the  three  stages  he  has  before  him 
are  any  thing  but  a  mere  segment  of  a  more  extensive 
law?  But,  besides  this,  before  we  proceed  to  compare  a 
colossal  hypothesis  with  the  facts,  we  must  sec  whether 
it  is  rational  in  itself,  and  consistent  with  our  previous 
knowledge.  An  hj-pothesis  accounting  for  certain  facts 
by  reference  to  the  sun's  motion  round  the  earth,  or  any 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF  niSTORY,  57 

thing  else  obviously  false  or  absurd,  may  be  dismissed  at 
once,  without  the  form  of  verification.  The  three  terms 
of  the  supposed  series,  the  Theological,  Metaphysical,  and 
Positive  states,  must  be  distinct  and  successive,  or  it  will 
be  no  series  at  all.  Now,  taking  "  Positive"  in  the  fair 
sense,  the  sense  of  sound  Theology  and  Positive  Science, 
the  theological  and  the  scientific  view  of  the  world  are 
neither  distinct  nor  successive,  but  may  very  well  go,  and 
do  often  go,  together.  A  man  may  be,  and  Newton  was, 
a  sound  astronomer  and  a  great  discoverer  of  astronomi- 
cal laws,  and  yet  believe  that  the  stars  were  made  and 
are  held  in  their  courses  by  the  hand  of  God.  A  man 
may  be,  and  Butler  was,  a  sound  moral  philosopher,  and 
a  great  discoverer  of  the  laws  of  human  nature,  and  yet 
believe  human  nature  to  be  in  its  origin  and  end  divine. 
Positivists  cite  for  our  admiration  a  saying  of  Lamennais, 
contrasting,  as  they  suppose,  the  religious  with  the  scien- 
tific view  of  things.  "Why  do  bodies  gravitate  toward 
each  other?  Because  God  willed  it,  said  the  ancients. 
Because  they  attract  each  other,  says  Science."  As 
though  God  could  not  will  that  bodies  should  attract 
each  other.  Polytheism,  putting  the  different  parts  of 
nature  under  the  arbitrary  dominion  of  separate  gods, 
conflicts  with,  and  has  been  overthrown  by,  Science, 
which  proves  that  one  set  of  laws,  the  work  of  one  God, 
traverses  the  whole.  And  this  I  venture  to  think  is  the 
mustard-seed  of  truth  out  of  which  the  vast  tree  of  M.  _ 
Comte's  historical  theory  has  grown.  So  far  from  there,'  J 
being  any  conflict  between  Monotheism  and  Science,  allj  7 
the  discoveries  of  science  confirm  the  h3qoothcsis  that  thej 
world  was  made  by  one  God ;  an  hypothesis  w'hich,  it 

C2 


68  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

should  be  observed,  was  quite  independent  of  the  prog- 
ress of  science,  since  it  bad  been  promulgated  in  tbe 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  before  science  came  into  exist- 
ence. As  to  the  Metaphysical  era,  which  is  the  inter- 
vening term  of  the  scries  between  the  Theological  and 
the  Positive,  nothing  in  history  corresponding  to  this  era 
has  been  or  can  be  produced.  No  age  is  or  can  be  point- 
ed out  in  which  a  nation  or  mankind  believed  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  world  or  of  human  nature  to  be  produced 
by  metaphysical  entities.  A  few  philosoi:)hers,  indeed, 
have  talked  of  nature  as  the  mother  of  all  things,  but  by 
nature  they  meant  not  a  metaphysical  entity,  but  cither 
the  laws  of  matter  personified,  in  which  case  they  were 
Positivists,  or  the  God  of  natural  religion  as  opposed  to 
the  God  of  revelation,  in  which  case  they  were  Thcists  ; 
so  that  of  the  three  terms  of  the  supposed  series,  the  first 
runs  into  the  third,  and  the  second  vanishes  altogether. 
The  theory  is  open  to  another  objection,  which  is  also  fii- 
tal.  Against  all  the  facts,  though  in  accordance  with  the 
bias  naturally  given  to  M.  Comte's  mind  by  his  scientific 
pursuits,  it  makes  the  scientific  faculties  and  tendencies 
predominant  in  man.  Which  view  of  science  was  it  that 
predominated  in  Attila  and  Timour,  who,  after  all,  played 
a  considerable  part  in  determining  the  course  of  history? 
What  has  been  said  as  to  the  incompleteness  of  the 
phenomena  of  history,  and  the  consequent  impossibility 
of  a  final  induction  as  to  its  law,  leads  to  a  remark  on  the 
theory  that  "  Man  is  to  be  studied  historically,"  and  its 
necessary  corollary  that  morality  is  not  absolute,  but  his- 
torical. If  there  can  be  no  complete  historical  induction, 
and  if,  at  the  same  time,  Man  is  to  be  studied  historically. 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY.  59 

nol  morally,  and  the  rule  of  right  action  is  to  be  taken, 
not  from  our  moral  instincts,  but  from  the  observation  of 
historical  facts,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  there  can  be  any 
rule  of  right  action  at  all.  Morality  and  our  moral  judg- 
ment of  characters  and  actions  must,  it  would  seem,  al- 
ways remain  in  suspense  till  the  world  ends,  and  history 
is  complete.  History  of  itself,  if  observed  as  science  ob- 
serves the  facts  of  the  physical  world,  can  scarcely  give 
man  any  principle  or  any  object  of  allegiance,  unless  it 
be  success.  Success  accordingly  enters  very  largely  into 
the  morality  of  the  thorough-going  Positivist.  He  can- 
onizes conquerors  and  despots,  and  consigns  to  infamy 
the  memory  of  men,  who,  though  they  fell,  fell  struggling 
for  a  noble  cause,  and  have  left  a  great  and  regenerating 
example  to  mankind.  The  morality,  not  only  absolute, 
but  mystical,  which  Positivism  in  its  second  phase  has 
adopted  to  satisfy  moral  instincts,  is  a  mere  copy  of  the 
social  aspect  of  Christianity ;  as  the  Church,  the  sacra- 
ments, and  the  priesthood,  invented  to  satisfy  our  relig- 
ious instincts,  are  a  mere  copy  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

You  may  say  that  virtue  has  prevailed  in  history  over 
vice,  and  that  our  allegiance  is  due  to  it  as  the  stronger. 
But,  granting  that  it  has  prevailed  hitherto,  to  say  which 
is  the  stronger  you  must  see  the  end  of  the  struggle. 
The  theologian  who,  like  Hobbes,  makes  religion  consist 
not  in  our  moral  sympathy  with  the  divine  nature,  but 
in  necessary  submission  to  divine  power,  will  find  him- 
self in  the  same  dilemma.  He  claims  our  allegiance  for 
the  power  of  good,  not  on  the  ground  of  our  sympathy 
with  good,  but  because  it  is  stronger  than  the  power  of 
evil.     He,  too,  before  be  says  which  is  the  stronger,  must 


60  ON  THE   STUDY  OF   HISTORY. 

see  the  end  of  the  struggle.     If  evil  prevails,  his  allegi- 
ance must  be  transferred. 

It  is  true  that  morality,  in  judging  the  past,  must  take 
liotice  of  historical  circumstances,  as  morality  takes  no- 
Mice  of  present  circumstances  in  judging  the  actions  of 
vliving  men.  Allowance  must  be  made  for  the  age,  the 
country,  the  state  of  things  in  which  each  character 
moved.  In  this  sense  (and  it  is  a  most  important  sense) 
there  may  be  said  to  be  such  a  thing  as  historical,  in  con- 
tradistinction to  an  absolute,  morality ;  though  a  moral- 
ity which  disregarded  the  circumstances  of  actions  in  his- 
tory or  life  would  deserve  to  be  called  not  absolute,  but 
idiotic,  and,  in  fact,  has  never  been  propounded.  But  let 
the  merit  or  demerit  of  an  historical  action  vary  ever  so 
much  with  the  circumstances,  justice  has  been  justice, 
mercy  has  been  mercy,  honor  has  been  honor,  good  faith 
has  been  good  faith,  truthfulness  has  been  truthfulness, 
from  the  beginning,  and  each,  of  these  qualities  is  one  and 
the  same  in  the  tent  of  the  Arab  and  in  the  senates  of 
civilized  nations.  A  sound  historical  morality  will  sanc- 
tion strong  measures  in  evil  times ;  selfish  ambition, 
treachery,  murder,  perjury,  it  will  never  sanction  in  the 
worst  of  times,  for  these  are  the  things  that  make  times 
evil. 

Again,  institutions  not  good  in  themselves  may  be 
good  for  certain  times  and  countries;  they  may  be  better 
than  what  went  before,  they  may  pave  the  way  for  some- 
thing better  to  follow.  Despotism  is  an  improvement  on 
anarchy,  and  may  lead  to  ordered  freedom.  But  there 
must  be  limits  to  our  catholicity  in  the  case  of  institu- 
tions as  well  as  in  the  case  of  actions.     Our  sympathy 


ON"  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY.  61 

here,  too,  is  bounded  by  morality.  It  is  just  possible  it 
may  embrace  the  institution  of  slavery,  if  slavery  was 
really  a  middle  term  between  wars  of  extermination  and 
a  free  industrial  system,  though  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
imagine  how  slavery  could  ever  be  otherwise  than  inju- 
rious to  the  character  of  the  slaveowner,  whatever  it 
might  be  to  that  of  the  slave.  But  cannibalism,  which 
certain  theories  would  lead  us  philosophically  to  accept 
as  useful  and  amiable  in  its  place,  must  have  been  exe- 
crable every  w^here  and  in  all  times. 

So,  again,  it  is  most  true  that  there  is  a  general  connec- 
tion between  the  different  parts  of  a  nation's  civilization ; 
call  it,  if  you  will,  a  consensus^  provided  that  the  notion 
of  a  set  of  physical  organs  does  not  slip  in  with  that  term. 
And  it  is  most  true  that  the  civilization  of  each  nation 
must,  to  a  certain  extent,  run  its  own  course.  It  is  folly 
to  force  on  the  most  backward  nations  the  laws  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  most  forward,  or  to  offer  intellectual  in- 
stitutions to  tribes  which  have  not  attained  the  arts  of 
life.  But  that  which  is  good  for  all  may  be  given  to  all, 
and  among  the  things  which  are  good  for  all  are  pure 
morality  and  true  religion.  We  can  not  at  once  give  a 
British  Constitution  to  the  Hindoo,  but  we  may  at  once, 
in  spite  of  consensus  and  necessary  development,  teach 
him  the  virtue  of  truth  and  the  unity  of  God.  The  thing 
may  be  impossible  in  the  eye  of  the  positive  science  of 
history ;  it  is  done  with  difficulty,  but  it  is  done.  ~X 

We  have  admitted  that  the  philosophy  of  history  is  \ 
indebted  to  physical  science  for  habits  of  methodical  rea-    ' 
soning  with  a  view  to  practical  results.     From  physical 
science  dealing,  however  wrongly,  with  historj-,  we  also 


62  ON  THE  STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

gain  a  certain  calmness  and  breadth  of  view,  derived 
from  regions  in  which  there  is  no  partisanship  or  fanati- 
cism, because  there  are  no  interests  by  which  partisan- 
ship or  fanaticism  can  be  inflamed.  It  is  less  easy  to  ac- 
knowledge that  the  student  of  history  is  indebted  to  the 
physical  school  of  historical  philosophy  for  enlarging  our 
historical  sympathies.  That  school,  on  the  contrary,  ex- 
tinguishes all  sympathy  in  any  obvious  sense  of  the 
word.  AVe  can  feel  love  and  gratitude  for  free  effort 
made  in  the  cause  of  man,  but  how  can  we  feel  love  or 
gratitude  toward  the  human  organ  of  a  necessary  prog- 
ress, any  more  than  toward  a  happy  geological  forma- 
tion or  a  fertilizing  river  ?  On  the  other  hand,  it  would 
be  easy  to  give  specimens  of  the  sort  of  sympathy  and 
the  sort  of  language  which  results  from  taking  a  purely 
scientific  view  of  history  and  man.  "Truth  docs  not  re- 
gard consequences,"  was  a  noble  saying ;  but  there  are 
some  cases  in  which  the  consequences  are  a  test  of  truth. 
As  the  physical  view  of  character  and  action,  if  it  really 
took  possession  of  the  mind,  must  put  an  end  to  self-ex- 
ertion, so  the  physical  view  of  the  history  of  nations 
would  dissolve  the  human  family  by  making  each  nation 
regard  the  other  as  in  a  course  of  necessary  progress,  to 
be  studied  scientifically,  but  not  to  be  hastened  or  inter- 
fered with,  instead  of  their  doing  all  they  can  to  enlight- 
en and  improve  each  other. 

We  must  not  suppose  that  because  the  order  of  nation- 
al actions  is  often  necessary,  the  actions  themselves  are. 
A  nation  may  have  to  go  through  one  stage  of  knowl- 
edge or  civilization  before  it  can  reach  another,  but  its 
going  through  either  is  still  free.    Nations  must  accumu- 


ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  63 

late  a  certain  degree  of  wealth,  before  thej  can  have  lei- 
sure to  think  or  write ;  but  the  more  degraded  and  indo- 
lent races  refuse  to  accumulate  wealth. 

We  must  guard,  too,  against  physical  metaphors  in 
talking  of  history ;  they  bring  witb  them  physical  ideas,  j 
and  prejudice  our  view  of  the  question.  Men  do  not  act- 
in  masses,  but  in  multitudes,  eack  man  of  which  has  a 
will  of  his  own,  and  determines  his  action  by  that  will, 
though  on  the  same  motives- as  the  rest.  Development 
is  a  word  proper  to  physical  organs,  which  can  not  be 
transferred  to  the  course  of  a  nation  without  begging  the 
whole  question.  The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  social 
statics  and  dynamics  applied  to  the  order  and  progress 
of  a  nation. 

Of  course,  in  hesitating  to  accept  the  physical  view  of 
man,  and  the  exact  science  founded  on  that  view,  we  do 
not  deny  or  overlook  the  fact  that,  besides  the  character 
and  actions  of  particular  men,  there  is  a  common  human 
nature,  on  the  general  tendencies  of  which,  considered 
in  the  abstract,  the  Moral  and  Economical  Sciences  are 
founded.  In  themselves,  and  till  they  descend  into  the 
actions  of  particular  men  or  nations,  these  sciences  are 
exact,  and  give  full  play  to  all  those  methods  of  scientific 
reasoning,  of  which,  once  more,  physical  science  seems  to 
be  the  great  school.  But  let  them  descend  into  the  ac- 
tions of  particular  men  and  nations,  and  their  exactness 
ceases.  The  most  exact  of  them,  naturally,  is  Political 
Economy,  which  deals  with  the  more  animal  part  of  hu- 
man nature,  where  the  tendencies  are  surer  because  the 
conflict  of  motives  is  less.  Yet  even  in  Political  Econo- 
my no  single  proposition  can  be  enunciated,  however 


64  ON  THE   STUDY  OF   HISTORY. 

true  in  the  general,  wliicli  is  not  constantly  falsified  by 
individual  actions.  It  seems  doubtful  -whether  the  tend- 
encies are  surer  in  the  case  of  nations  than  in  the  case  of 
men.  The  course  of  a  nation  is  often  as  eccentric,  as 
wayward,  as  full  of  heroic  and  fiendish  impulse,  as  im- 
possible to  predict  from  year  to  year,  from  hour  to  hour, 
as  that  of  a  man.  The  passions  of  men  are  not  always 
countervailed  and  nullilied  by  those  of  other  men  in  a 
nation ;  they  are  often  intensified  by  contagion  to  the 
highest  degree,  and  national  panic  or  enthusiasm  goes  far 
beyond  that  of  single  men.  The  course  of  nations,  too,  is 
liable  to  the  peculiar  disturbing  influence  of  great  men, 
who  are  partly  made  by,  but  who  also  partly  make,  their 
age.  A  grain  more  of  sand,  said  Pascal — say  rather  a 
grain  less  of  resolution — in  the  brain  of  Cromwell,  one 
more  pang  of  doubt  in  the  tossed  and  wavering  soul  of 
Luther,  and  the  current  of  England  or  the  world's  history 
had  been  changed.  The  Positivists  themselves,  though 
it  is  their'aim  to  exhibit  all  history  as  the  result  of  gen- 
eral laws,  are  so  far  from  excluding  personal  influences, 
that  they  have  made  a  kind  of  hagiology  and  demonol- 
ogy  of  eminent  promoters  of  progress  and  eminent  reac- 
tionists, as  though  these,  rather  than  the  laws,  ruled  the 
whole ;  and  no  higher,  not  to  say  more  fabulous,  estimate 
of  the  personal  influence  of  Eichelicu  and  Burke  will  be 
found  than  in  the  work  of  a  Positivist  author  who  has 
treated  all  personal  history  as  unphilosophical  gossij-), 
henceforth  to  be  superseded  by  histories  written  on  a 
philosophical  method.  Accidents,  too,  mere  accidents — 
the  bullet  which  struck  Gustavus  on  the  field  of  Liitzcn, 
the  chance  by  which  the  Kussian  lancers  missed  Napoleon 


ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  65 

in  the  church-yard  of  Ejlau,  the  chance  •which  stopped 
Louis  XVI.  in  his  flight  at  Varennes  and  carried  him 
back  to  the  guillotine — turn  the  course  of  history  as  well 
as  of  life,  and  baffle,  to  that  extent,  all  law,  all  tendency, 
all  prevision. 

There  are  some  other  views,  rather  than  theories  of 
history,  besides  the  strictly  Necessarian  theory,  which 
conflict  with  free-will,  and  which  may  be  just  noticed 
here. 

One  is  the  view,  if  it  should  not  be  rather  called  a  play 
of  fancy,  which  treats  all  nations  as  stereotyped  embodi- 
ments of  an  idea,  or  the  phases  of  an  idea,  which  is  as- 
sumed to  have  been  involved  in  the  original  scheme  of 
things.  China,  which  is  naturally  first  fixed  on  in  ap- 
plying this  hypothesis  to  the  facts  of  history,  may,  by  a 
stretch  of  imagination,  be  taken  to  embody  a  stereotyped 
idea,  though  even  in  China  there  has  been  change,  and 
indeed  progress,  enough  to  belie  the  notion.  But  as  to 
all  the  more  progressive  nations,  this  view  is  so  palpably 
contradicted  by  the  most  glaring  facts  that  we  need  hard- 
ly go  farther.  "We  may  dispense  with  asking  how  an 
idea,  which  never  was  present  to  any  mind  but  that  of 
a  modern  philosopher,  became  embodied  in  the  actions 
which  make  up  the  history  of  a  nation ;  how  it  passed  in 
its  different  phases  from  nation  to  nation,  and  how  it  hap- 
pens that  its  last  phase  exactly  coincides  with  our  time. 
The  half-poetic  character  of  this  view  is  apparent  when 
we  are  told  that  the  reason  for  beginning  with  China  is, 
that  the  light  of  civilization,  as  well  as  the  light  of  the 
sun,  must  rise  in  the  East;  as  though  the  sun  rose  in 
China!     Here,  in  fact,  we  see  Metaphysical  Philosophy, 


66  ON  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

as  ■well  as  Physical  Science,  attempting  to  extend  its  em- 
pire over  a  domain  "which  is  not  its  own. 

Other  writers  erect  some  one  physical  influence,  the 
influence  of  race,  of  climate,  of  food,  into  a  sort  of  destiny 
of  nations.  The  importance  of  these  influences  is  great, 
and  to  trace  them  is  a  task  full  of  interest  and  instruc- 
tion. But  man  is  the  same  in  his  moral  and  intellectual 
essence,  that  is,  in  his  sovereign  part,  whatever  his  stock, 
■whether  he  live  beneath  African  suns  or  Arctic  frosts, 
whether  his  food  be  flesh,  corn,  or  a  mixture  of  the  two. 
lie  is  not,  as  these  theorists  would  make  him,  the  most 
helpless,  but  the  most  helpful  of  animals ;  and  by  his 
mind  ajDplied  to  building,  warming,  clothing,  makes  his 
own  climate ;  by  his  mind  applied  to  husbandry  and 
commerce,  modifies  his  own  food.  Race  seems,  of  all 
physical  influences,  the  strongest.  Yet  how  small  and 
superficial  is  the  difference,  compared  with  the  agree- 
ment, between  a  cultivated  man  and  a  good  Christian 
from  London  and  one  from  Paris,  or  even  between  one 
from  either  of  those  places  and  one  from  Benares.  The 
prevailing  passion  for  degrading  humanity  to  mere  clay, 
and  leveling  it  with  the  other  objects  of  phj-sical  science, 
is  liable,  like  other  prevailing  passions,  to  lead  to  exag- 
geration. Confident  deductions,  of  the  most  sweeping 
and  momentous  kind,  arc  made  from  a  statement  of  phys- 
ical fact.  The  statement  is  overthrown,*  yet  the  deduc- 
tions arc  not  withdrawn,  and  the  world  in  its  present 
mood  seems  not  unwilling  to  believe  that  the  destruction 
of  the  proof  leaves  the  theory  founded  on  it  still  general- 
ly true. 

*  Sec  the  Edinburp  Review,  vol.  cvii.,  p.  4(^8  0  f  April,  IPr.S). 


ON   TUE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY.  67 

There  is  also  a  floating  notion  tliat  the  lives  of  nations 
are  limited  by  some  mysterious  law,  and  that  they  are 
born,  grow  to  maturity,  and  die  like  men.  But  the  life 
of  a  nation  is  a  metaphorical  expression.  No  reason  can 
be  given  why  a  nation  should  die;  and  no  nation  ever 
has  died,  though  some  have  been  killed  by  external 
force. 

Parallels  between  the  political  courses  of  nations  are 
also  sometimes  pressed  too  far,  and  made  to  seem  like  a 
necessary  law.  Some  of  the  little  states  of  Greece  ran  a 
remarkably  parallel  course,  but  they  were  not  independ- 
ent of  each  other ;  they  were  all  members  of  the  Greek 
nation,  and  influenced  each  other's  politics  by  contagion, 
and  sometimes  by  direct  interference.  A  parallel,  which 
seemed  curiously  exact,  was  also  drawn  between  the 
events  of  the  English  and  French  Eevolutions :  it  seem- 
ed to  hold  till  the  accession  of  Louis  Philippe,  but  where 
is  it  now?  The  similarity  between  the  two  revolutions 
was  in  truth  superficial,  compared  with  their  dissimilar- 
ity. Eeligion,  the  main  element  of  the  English  move- 
ment, was  wanting  in  the  French :  the  flight  of  the  no- 
bility, the  confiscation  of  their  estates,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  peasant  proprietary,  which  decided  the 
ultimate  character  and  destiny  of  the  French  movement, 
were  wanting  in  the  English.  So  far  as  there  was  a  sim- 
ilarity, it  was  produced  partly  by  mere  general  tenden- 
cies, which  lead  to  anarchy  after  gross  misgovcrnment, 
to  a  dictatorship  after  anarchy,  and  to  the  attempt  to  re- 
cover freedom  after  a  dictatorship ;  partly  by  mere  acci- 
dents, such  as  the  want  of  a  son  and  heir  in  the  case  both 
of  Charles  II.  and  of  Louis  XVIIL,  and  the  consequent 


68  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTOEY. 

reversion  of  the  crown  to  a  brotlier,  who  belonged  b j  age 
and  education  to  the  old  state  of  things.  Had  Mon- 
mouth been  Charles's  legitimate  son,  all  probably  would 
have  been  changed. 

^  Lastly,  there  is  the  habit  of  tracing  special  acts  of 
Providence  in  history.  This  sometimes  goes  the  length 
of  making  history  one  vast  act  of  special  Providence, 
and  turning  it  into  a  puppet-play,  which,  our  hearts  sug- 
gest, might  have  been  played  with  other  puppets,  less 
Sensible  of  pain  and  misery  than  man.  Surely  it  is  per- 
ilous work  to  be  reading  the  most  secret  counsels  of  the 
Creator  by  a  light  always  feeble,  often  clouded  by  preju- 
dice, often  by  passion.  The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 
seemed  a  special  act  of  Providence  to  the  papal  party  of 
the  day.  Are  Te  Deums  for  bloody  victories  less  pro- 
fane ?  Is  the  scoff  of  Frederick  true,  and  is  Providence 
always  with  the  best-drilled  grenadiers?  To  a  believer 
in  Christianity  nothing  seems  so  like  a  special  act  of 
Providence  as  the  preparation  made  for  the  coming  of 
Christianity  through  the  preceding  events  in  the  history 
of  Greece  and  Eome,  on  which  a  preacher  was  eloquent- 
ly enlarging  to  us  the  other  da}''.  To  a  believer  in 
Christianity  it  seems  so.  But  those  who  do  not  believe 
in  Christianity  say  "  Yes;  that  is  the  true  account  of  the 
matter.  Christianity  arose  from  a  happy  confluence  of 
the  Greek  and  Eoman  with  the  Hebrew  civilization. 
This  is  the  source  of  that  excellence  which  you  call  di- 
vine." Thus  what  appears  to  one  side  a  singular  proof 
of  the  special  interposition  of  Providence,  is  used  on  the 
other  side,  and  necessarily  with  equal  force,  to  show  tliat 
Christianity  itself  is  no  special  interposition  of  Provi- 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTOHY.  69 

dence  at  all,  but  the  natural  result  of  the  historical 
events  by  which  it  "was  ushered  into  the  world.  The 
Duke  of  Weimar  spoke  more  safely  when  he  said  of  the 
tyranny  of  the  first  Napoleon  in  Germany,  "It  is  unjust, 
and  therefore  it  can  not  last."  He  would  have  spoken 
more  safely  still  if  he  had  said,  ''Last  or  not  last,  it  is  un- 
just, and  being  unjust,  it  carries  its  own  sentence  in  its 
heart,  and  will  prove  the  weakest  in  the  sum  of  things." 

Is  history,  then,  a  chaos  because  it  has  no  necessary '\ 
law  ?  Is  there  no  philosophy  of  history  because  there  is  • 
no  science  ? 

There  are  two  grand  facts  with  which  the  philosophyA\ 
of  history  deals  —  the  division  of  nations  and  the  succes-ti 
sion  of  ages.     Are  these  without  a  meaning  ?     If  so,  the  » 
two  greatest  facts  in  the  world  are  alone  meaningless. 

It  is  clear  that  the  division  of  nations  has  entered  deep- 
ly into  the  counsels  of  creation.  It  is  secured  not  only 
by  barriers  of  sea,  mountains,  rivers,  intervening  deserts 
— barriers  which  conquest,  the  steam- vessel,  and  the  rail- 
road might  surmount — but  also  by  race,  by  language,  by 
climate,  and  other  physical  influences,  so  potent  that  each 
in  its  turn  has  been  magnified  into  the  key  of  all  history. 
The  division  is  perhaps  as  great  and  as  deeply  rooted  as 
it  could  be  without  destrojang  the  unity  of  mankind. 
Nor  is  it  hard  to  see  a  reason  for  it.  If  all  mankind 
were  one  state,  with  one  set  of  customs,  one  literature, 
one  code  of  laws,  and  this  state  became  corrupted,  what 
remedy,  what  redemption  would  there  be  ?  None,  but  a 
convulsion  which  would  rend  the  frame  of  society  to 
piecesj'and  deeply  injure  the  moral  life  which  society  is 
designed  to  guard.     Not  only  so,  but  the  very  idea  of 


70  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

political  improvement  might  be  lost,  and  all  the  world 
mi2;bt  become  more  dead  than  China.  Nations  redeem 
each  other.  They  preserve  for  each  other  principles, 
truths,  hopes,  aspirations,  which,  committed  to  the  keep- 
ing of  one  nation  only,  might,  as  frailty  and  error  are 
conditions  of  man's  bemg,  become  extinct  forever.  They 
not  only  raise  each  other  again  when  fallen,  they  save 
each  other  from  falling;  they  support  each  other's  steps 
by  sympathy  and  example  ;  they  moderate  each  other's 
excesses  and  extravagances,  and  keep  them  short  of  the 
fatal  point  by  the  mutual  action  of  opinion,  when  the  ac- 
tion of  opinion  is  not  shut  out  by  despotic  folly.  They 
do  for  each  other  nationally  very  much  what  men  of  dif- 
ferent characters  do  for  each  other  morally  in  the  inter- 
course of  life ;  and  that  they  might  do  this,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  they  should  be  as  they  are,  and  as  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  world  secure  their  being,  at  once  like  and 
unlike — like  enough  for  sympathy,  unlike  enough  for 
mutual  correction.  Conquest,  therefore,  may  learn  that 
it  has  in  the  long  run  to  contend  not  only  against  moral- 
it}^,  but  against  nature.  Two  great  attempts  have  been 
made  in  the  history  of  the  world  to  crush  the  nationality 
of  large  groups  of  nations  forming  the  civilized  portion 
of  the  globe.  The  first  was  made  by  the  military  Rome 
of  antiquity;  the  second,  of  a  qualified  kind,  was  made 
by  the  ecclesiastical  Rome  of  the  Middle  Ages,  partly  by 
priestly  weapons,  partly  by  the  sword  of  devout  kings. 
The  result  was  universal  corruption,  political  and  social 
in  the  first  case,  ecclesiastical  in  the  second.  In  both 
cases  aid  was  brought,  and  the  fortunes  of  humanity  were 
restored  by  a  power  from  without,  but  for  which,  it  would 


ox   THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY.  71 

seem,  the  corruption  would  have  been  hopeless.  In  the 
first  case,  the  warlike  tribes  of  the  North  shivered  the 
yoke  of  Rome,  and  after  an  agony  of  six  centuries,  re- 
stored the  nations.  In  the  second  case,  Greece  rose  from 
the  dead  with  the  New  Testament  in  her  hand,  and 
breathed  into  the  kindred  spirits  of  the  great  Teutonic 
races  such  love  of  free  inquiry  and  of  liberty  that  they 
rose  and  rent  the  bonds  of  Rome  and  her  Celtic  vassals 
— rent  them,  but  at  the  cost  of  a  convulsion  which  filled 
the  world  with  blood,  and  has  made  mutual  hatred  almost 
the  law  of  Christendom  from  that  hour  to  this.  Without 
the  help  of  Greece  it  does  not  appear  that  the  gate  of  the 
tomb  in  which  Europe  lay  would  ever  have  been  forced 
back.  She  might  have  been  pent  in  it  forever,  like  the 
doomed  spirits  in  Dante  when  the  lid  of  their  sepulchres 
is  closed  at  the  last  day.  "Wickliffe  and  John  Huss  spent 
their  force  against  it  in  vain.  The  tyranny  might  have 
been  differently  shared  between  the  different  powers  of 
the  universal  Church,  between  pope  and  council,  between 
pope  and  king ;  but  this  change  would  have  done  little 
for  liberty  and  truth.  Nationality  is  not  a  virtue,  but  if^ 
is  an  ordinance  of  nature  and  a  natural  bond;  it  does 
much  good ;  in  itself  it  prevents  none ;  and  the  experi- 
ence of  history  condemns  every  attempt  to  crush  it,  when 
it  has  once  been  really  formed. 

To  pass  to  the  other  grand  fact  with  which  the  philoso- 
phy of  history  deals — the  succession  of  ages.  It  is  clear  /*-_ 
that  the  history  of  the  race,  or  at  least  of  the  principal 
portion  of  it,  exhibits  a  course  of  moral,  intellectual^  and 
material  progress,  and  that  this  progress  is  natural,  being 
caused  by  the  action  of  desires  and  faculties  implanted  in 


72  ON   THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

the  nature  of  man.  It  is  natural,  but  it  is  not  like  any 
progress  caused  by  a  necessary  law.  It  is  a  progress  of 
effort,  having  all  the  marks  of  effort  as  clearly  as  the  life 
of  a  man  struggling  and  stumbling  toward  wisdom  and 
virtue ;  and  it  is  as  being  a  progress  of  effort,  not  a  nec- 
essary development,  that  its  incidents,  revealed  in  his  his- 
tory, engage  our  interest  and  touch  our  hearts. 

There  seems  to  be  nothing  in  the  fact  of  progress 
either  degrading  to  human  dignity  or  pampering  to  hu- 
man pride.  The  assertion  that  history  began  in  feti- 
chism  and  cannibalism  is  made  without  a  shadow  of 
proof.  Those  states  are  assumed  at  a  venture  to  have 
been  the  first,  because  they  are  seen  to  be  the  lowest; 
the  possibility  of  their  being  not  original  states,  but  dis- 
eases, being  left  out  of  sight.  As  to  fetichism,  the  first 
hunter  or  shepherd  who  swore  to  another  and  disap- 
pointed him  not,  though  it  were  to  his  own  hinderance, 
must  have  felt  the  supernatural  sanction  of  duty,  and  the 
eternity  of  moral  as  contrasted  with  physical  evil,  and, 
therefore,  he  must  implicitly  have  believed  in  the  two 
great  articles  of  natural  religion — God  and  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul.  It  is  mythoJogij^  of  which  fetichism  is  the 
lowest  form,  that  has  its  root  in  nature.  JReligion  has  its 
root  in  man ;  and  man  can  never  have  been  without  re- 
ligion, however  perverted  his  idea  of  God,  and  however 
degraded  his  worship  may  have  been.  As  to  cannibal- 
ism, it  seems  to  be  sometimes  a  frenzy  of  the  warlike  pas- 
sions, sometimes  a  morbid  tendency  engendered  by  the 
want,  in  certain  islands,  of  animal  food.  At  all  events, 
it  is  most  unlikely  that  the  original  food  of  man  should 
have  been  that  which  is  not  only  the  most  loathsome. 


ON"  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  73 

but  the  most  difficult  to  obtain,  siuce  he  would  have  to 
overcome  an  animal  as  strong  and  as  cunning  as  himself. 
Besides,  how  could  the  human  race  have  multiplied  if 
they  had  lived  upon  each  other  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  as  progress  does  not  imply  a  state 
worse  than  the  brutes  at  the  beginning,  so  it  does  not 
imply  perfection  in  the  end,  though  it  is  not  for  us  to 
limit  the  degree  of  knowledge  or  excellence  which  it 
may  have  pleased  the  Creator  to  render  attainable  at  last 
by  man.  This  doctrine,  in  truth,  checks  our  pride  by 
putting  each  generation,  ours  among  the  number,  in  its 
true  place.  It  teaches  us  that  we  are  the  heirs  of  the 
past,  and  that  to  that  heritage  we  shall  add  a  little,  and 
but  a  little,  before  we  bequeath  it  to  the  future ;  that  we 
are  not  the  last  or  the  greatest  birth  of  time ;  that  all  the 
ages  have  not  wandered  in  search  of  truth,  that  we  might 
find  it  pure  and  whole ;  that  we  must  plant  in  the  hope 
that  others  will  reap  the  fruit;  that  we  must  hand  on 
the  torch — brighter,  if  we  do  our  part — but  that  we  must 
hand  it  on ;  and  that  no  spasmodic  effort  will  bring  us  in 
our  span  of  life  and  labor  to  the  yet  far-off  goal. 

But,  welcome  or  unwelcome,  the  progress  of  humanity 
down  to  the  present  time  is  a  fact.  Man  has  advanced 
in  the  arts  of  life,  in  the  wealth  which  springs  from  them, 
in  the  numbers  which  they  support,  and  with  the  increase 
of  which  the  aggregate  powers  and  sympathies  of  the 
race  increase.  He  has  advanced  in  knowledge,  and  still 
advances,  and  that  in  the  accelerating  ratio  of  his  aug- 
mented knowledge  added  to  his  powers.  So  much  is 
clear ;  but  then  it  is  said,  "  The  progress  is  intellectual 
only,  not  moral ;  we  have  discoveries  of  the  intellect  in- 

D 


74  ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

creasing  in  number  and  value  from  age  to  age,  whose  au- 
thors arc  the  jd roper  and  sole  objects  of  the  world's  grat- 
itude and  love.  We  have  no  moral  improvement ;  the 
moral  nature  of  man  remains  the  same  from  the  begin- 
ning, with  the  same  passions  and  allcctions,  good  an-d 
evil,  which  it  is  confidently  added  are  always  in  equilib- 
rium. The  moral  law  is  the  same  for  all  ages  and  na- 
tions ;  nothing  has  been  added  to  the  Decalogue."  This 
theory  is  carried  as  far  as  it  well  can  be  when  it  is  laid 
down,  not  only  that  the  progress  of  humanity  is  a  prog- 
ress of  the  intellect  alone,  but  that  the  progressive  virtue 
of  the  intellect  lies  in  skepticism  or  doubt,  the  state  of 
mind  which  suspends  all  action ;  and  when  it  is  farther 
laid  down  that  moral  virtue,  so  l\ir  from  causing  the 
progress  of  humanity,  sometimes  impedes  it,  the  proof  of 
which  is  the  mischief  done  in  the  world  by  good  men 
who  are  bigots — as  though  bigots  were  good  men. 

That  morality  and  man's  moral  nature  remain  the  same 
throughout  history  is  true ;  it  is  true  also  that  morality 
and  the  moral  nature  remain  the  same  throughout  man's 
life,  from  his  birth  to  his  old  age.  But  character  does 
not  remain  the  same ;  the  character  of  the  man  is  contin- 
ually advancing  through  life,  and,  in  like  manner,  the 
character  of  the  race  advances  through  history.  The 
moral  and  spiritual  experience  of  the  man  grows  from 
age  to  age,  as  well  asvhis  knowledge,  and  produces  a 
deeper  and  maturcr  character  as  it  grows.  Part  of  this 
experience  is  recorded  in  religious  books,  the  writings  of 
philosophers,  essays,  poetry,  works  of  sentiment,  talcs — a 
class  of  literature  which  must  seem  useless  and  unmean- 
ing to  those  who  hold  that  our  progress  is  one  of  science 


ON  THE  STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  75 

alone.    Part  of  it  is  silently  transmitted,  witli  its  increase, 
through  the  training  which  each  generation  gives  to  the 
next.     We  ask  why  the  ancients  thought  and  wrote  so 
little  about  the  beauties  of  nature?     It  certainly  was 
not  that  they  lived  in  a  land  less  beautiful,  or  saw  its 
beauties  with  eyes  less  keen  than  ours.     But  the  love  of 
natural  beauties  is  not  only  in  the  eye ;  it  requires  a  cer- 
tain maturity  of  sentiment  to  call  out  the  mute  sympathy 
with  which  nature  is  charged  for  man,  to  lend  their  mys- 
tery to  the  forest  and  the  sea,  its  pensiveness  to  evening, 
its  moral  to  the  year.     When  a  modern,  instead  of  writ- 
ing modern  poetry,  imitates,  however  skillfully,  the  poet- 
ry of  the  Greeks,  how  great  is  the  sacrifice  of  all  that 
most  touches  our  hearts,  and  yet  how  much  that  is  be- 
yond the  range  of  Greek  sentiment  remains !     Philan- 
thropy is  a  Greek  word,  but  how  wide  a  circle  of  ideas, 
sentiments,  affections,  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  does  its 
present  meaning  embrace  !     In  natural  religion  itself  the 
progress  seems  not  less  clear.     Man's  idea  of  God  must 
rise  as  he  sees  more  of  Him  in  His  works,  as  he  sees 
more  of  Him  by  reflecting  on  his  own  nature  (in  which 
the  true  proof  of  natural  religion  lies),  and  in  those  efforts 
of  human  virtue  in  other  men  which  would  be  unac- 
countable if  there  were  no  God,  and  this  world  were  all. 
More  and  more,  too,  from  age  to  age,  the  ideas  of  the  soul 
and  of  a  future  life  rise  in  distinctness ;  Man  feels  more 
and  more  that  he  is  a  traveler  between  the  cradle  and 
the  grave,  and  that  the  great  fact  of  life  is  death,  and  the 
centre  of  human  interest  moves  gradually  toward  the 
other  world.     Man  would  perhaps  have  been  paralyzed 
in   liis  early  struggle  with  nature  for  subsistence  had 


76  ON  THE   STUDY  OF   HISTORY. 

these  deep  thouglits  then  taken  too  much  possession  of 
his  mind.  Ilis  earliest  and  coarsest  wants  satisfied,  he 
began  to  feel  other  wants,  to  think  of  himself  and  his 
own  destinies,  and  to  enter  on  ft  distinct  spiritual  life. 
Those  at  least  began  to  do  so  who  had  leisure,  power  of 
mind,  and  cultivation  enough  to  think,  and  the  reach  of 
whose  intellects  made  them  feel  keenly  the  narrow  limit 
of  this  life.  Yet  the  spiritual  life  was  confined  to  few, 
and  even  in  those  few  it  was  not  of  a  very  earnest  kind. 
The  Phcedo  is  a  graceful  work  of  philosophic  art  rather 
than  a  very  passionate  effort  to  overcome  the  grave. 
The  Greek,  for  the  most  part,  rose  lightly  from  the  ban- 
quet of  life  to  pass  into  that  unknown  land  with  whose 
mystery  speculation  had  but  dallied,  and  of  which  come- 
dy had  made  a  jest.  The  Eoman  lay  down  almost  as 
lightly  to  rest  after  his  course  of  public  duty.  But  now, 
if  Death  could  really  regain  his  victory  in  the  mind  of 
man,  hunger  and  philosophy  together  would  hardly  hold 
life  in  its  course.  The  latest  and  most  thorough-going 
school  of  materialism  has  found  it  necessary  to  provide 
something  for  man's  spiritual  nature,  and  has  made  a 
shadowy  divinity  out  of  the  abstract  being  of  humanity, 
and  a  shadowy  immortality  of  the  soul  out  of  a  figment 
that  the  dead  are  greater  than  the  living.  Lucretius  felt 
no  such  need. 

If  it  could  be  said  that  there  was  no  progress  in  human 
character  because  the  moral  law  and  the  moral  nature  of 
man  remain  the  same  in  all  ages,  it  might  equally  be  said 
that  there  could  be  no  variety  in  character  because  the 
moral  Inw  and  our  moral  nature  arc  the  same  in  all  per- 
sons.    But  the  variety  of  characters  which  our  hearts, 


ON"  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTOEY.  77 

bound  to  no  one  type,  acknowledge  as  good,  noble,  beau- 
tifal,  is  infinite,  and  grows  with  the  growing  variety  of 
human  life.  It  ranges  from  the  most  rapt  speculation  to 
the  most  vigorous  action,  from  the  gentlest  sentiment  to 
the  most  iron  public  duty,  from  the  lowliest  flower  in  the 
poetry  of  Wordsworth  to  that  grand  failure,  Milton's  pic- 
ture of  the  fallen  Archangel,  who  lacks  the  great  notes 
of  evil,  inasmuch  as  he  is  not  mean  or  selfish,  but  is  true 
to  those  who  have  fallen  by  him;  for  them  braves  a 
worse  fate  than  the  worst,  and  for  them,  amidst  despair, 
wears  hope  upon  his  brow.  The  observance  of  the  mor- 
al law  is  the  basis  and  condition,  as  the  common  moral 
nature  is  the  rudiment,  of  all  excellence  in  human  char- 
acter. But  it  is  the  basis  and  condition  only ;  it  is  nega- 
tive, whereas  character  is  positive,  and  wins  our  rever- 
ence and  affection  because  it  is  so.  The  Decalogue  gives 
us  no  account  of  heroism  or  the  emotions  it  excites;  still 
less  does  it  give  us  an  account  of  that  infinite  variety  of 
excellences  and  graces  which  is  the  beauty  of  history  and 
life,  and  which,  we  can  not  doubt,  the  great  and  ever-in- 
creasing variety  of  situations  in  history  and  life  were  in- 
tended by  the  Creator  to  produce. 

If  the  end  and  the  key  of  history  is  the  formation  of 
character  by  effort,  the  end  and  key  of  history  are  the 
same  with  the  end  and  key  of  the  life  of  man.  If  the 
progress  of  the  intellect  is  the  essential  part  of  history, 
then  the  harmony  between  man  and  history  is  at  an  end. 
Man  does  not  rest  in  intellect  as  his  end,  not  even  in  in- 
tellect of  a  far  less  dry  and  more  comprehensive  kind 
than  that  which  the  maintainers  of  the  intellectual  theory 
of  history  have  in  view.     If  all  mankind  were  Hamlets 


78  ON  THE   STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 


it  would  scarcely  be  a  happier  world.  Suppose  intellect 
to  be  the  end  of  Man,  and  all  moral  effort,  all  moral  beau- 
.y,  even  all  poetry,  all  sentiment,  must  go  for  nothing ; 
they  are  void,  meaningless,  and  vain — an  account  of  the 
matter  which  hardly  corresponds  with  the  meaning  and 
fitness  (not  to  assume  design)  which  we  see  in  every  part 
of  the  physical  world.  Certainly,  if  we  believe  in  a  Cre- 
ator, it  is  difficult  to  imagine  Him  making  such  a  world 
as  this,  with  all  its  abysses  of  misery  and  crime,  merely 
that  some  of  Ilis  creatures  might  with  infinite  labor  at- 
tain a  modicum  of  knowledge  which  can  be  of  use  only 
in  this  world,  and  must  come  to  nothing  again  when  all 
is  done.  But  if  the  formation  of  character  by  effort  is 
the  end,  every  thing  has  a  meaning,  every  thing  has  a 
place.  A  certain  degree  of  material  well-being,  for  which 
man  naturally  exerts  himself,  is  necessary  to  character, 
which  is  coarse  and  low  where  the  life  of  man  is  beast- 
like,  miserable,  and  short.  Intellect  and  the  activity  of 
intellect  enter  (we  need  not  here  ask  how)  deeply  into 
character.  For  the  beauty  of  intellectual  excellence  the 
world  forgives  great  weakness,  though  not  vice ;  and  all 
attempts  to  cast  out  intellect  and  reduce  character  to  emo- 
tion, even  religious  emotion,  have  produced  only  a  type 
which  is  useless  to  society,  and  which  the  healthy  moral 
taste  has  always  rejected.  And  certainlj,  if  character  is_ 
the  end  of  history,  and  moral  effort  the  necessary  means 
to  that  end  (as  no  other  means  of  forming  character  is 
known  to  us),  optimism  may,  after  all,  not  be  so  stupid  as 
some  philosophers  suppose;  and  this  world,  which  is 
plainly  enough  so  arranged  as  to  force  man  to  the  utmost 
possible  amount  of  effort,  may  well  be  the  best  of  all  pos- 
sible worlds. 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY,  79 

We  must  pause  before  the  question  liow  deep  the  unity 
of  humanity  and  the  unity  of  history  goes;  how  far 
those  who,  through  all  the  ages,  have  shared  in  the  long 
effort,  with  all  its  failures,  errors,  sufferings,  will  share  in 
the  ultimate  result;  how  far  those  who  have  sown  will 
have  their  part  in  the  harvest,  those  who  have  planted  in 
the  fruit;  how  far  the  future  of  our  race,  as  well  as  the 
past,  is  ours.     That  is  a  secret  that  lies  behind  the  veil. 


ON   THE    STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 


IL 

In  a  former  lecture  I  gave  reasons  for  hesitating  to  be- 
lieve that  history  is  governed  by  necessary  laws.  I  sub- 
mitted that  history  is  made  up  of  the  actions  of  men,  and 
that  each  of  us  is  conscious  in  his  own  case  that  the  ac- 
tions of  men  are  free.  I  am  not  aware  that  even  an  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  reconcile  the  judgments  of  the 
retrospective  conscience,  the  belief  implied  in  those  judg- 
ments that  each  action  might  have  been  done  or  left  un- 
done, and  the  exceptional  allowance  which  conscience 
makes  in  the  case  of  actions  done  wholly  or  partly  on 
compulsion,  with  the  hypothesis  that  our  actions  are  sub- 
ject to  causation,  like  the  events  of  the  physical  world. 
Wherein  is  an  Alfred  more  the  subject  of  moral  appro- 
bation than  a  good  harvest,  or  a  Philip  II.  more  the  sub- 
ject of  moral  disapprobation  than  the  plague  ?  This  is 
a  question  to  which  I  am  not  aware  that  an  answer  has 
yet  been  given. 

Still,  if  it  could  be  shown  that  history  does,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  run  in  accordance  with  any  invariable  law,  we 
might  be  obliged  to  admit  that  the  Necessarians  (so  I 
shall  venture  to  call  them  till  they  can  find  another  ap- 
plication for  the  term  "necessity")  had  gained  their  cause, 

D2 


82  ox   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

though  a  stranofc  contradiction  would  then  be  cstablislicd 
between  our  outward  observation  and  our  inward  con- 
sciousness. I  therefore  examined  the  hypothesis  of  M. 
Corate,  that  the  development  of  humanity  is  regulated 
by  the  progress  of  science  through  the  successive  stages 
of  Theological,  Metaphysical,  and  Positive.  I  submitted 
that,  among  other  antecedent  objections  to  the  theory, 
these  three  terms  do  not  form  a  series,  Positive,  that  is, 
sound  Science  and  Theology  not  being  successive,  but  co- 
existent in  the  highest  minds.  Other  writers  of  the  same 
school  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  propounded  a  general 
hypothesis.  They  have  rather  brought  out,  and  I  ven- 
ture to  think  immensely  exaggerated,  the  effects  pro- 
duced on  the  comparative  history  of  nations  by  certain 
physical  influences,  especially  by  the  influence  of  food. 
I  think  I  perceive  that  there  is  a  tendency  among  the 
disciples  of  these  teachers  to  allow  that  their  hypotheses 
are  incapable  of  verification,  but,  at  the  same  time,  to  in- 
sist that  they  are  grand  generalizations,  and  that,  being 
so  grand,  it  is  impossible  they  should  not  point  to  some 
great  truth.  \For  my  part,  I  sec  no  more  grandeur  in  a 
scientific  hypothesis  which  is  incapable  of  verification 
than  in  the  equally  broad  assertions  of  astrology,  I  sec 
no  impossibility,  but  an  extreme  likelihood,  that  physical 
science,  having  lately  achieved  so  much,  should  arrogate 
more  than  she  has  achieved,  and  that  a  mock  science 
should  thus  have  been  set  up  where  the  domain  of  real 
science  ends.  I  think  this  supposition  is  in  accordance 
with  the  tendencies  of  human  nature  and  with  the  his- 
tory of  human  thought.  It  is  all  the  more  likely  that 
this  usurpation  on  the  part  of  science  should  have  taken 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  83 

place,  since  Theology  has  tempted  Science  to  usurp  by 
long  keeping  her  out  of  her  rightful  domain.  "VVe  see 
here,  too,  the  reaction  which  follows  on  all  injustice. 

I  submitted,  moreover,  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
history  can  supply  its  own  inductive  law,  since  its  course 
is  always  advancing,  the  list  of  its  phenomena  is  never 
full,  and,  till  the  end  of  time,  the  materials  for  the  in- 
duction can  never  be  complete.  How  often  would  a 
partial  observation  lead  physical  science  to  lay  down 
false  laws  ? 

But  why  argue  without  end  about  that  which  we  may 
bring  to  a  practical  test?  If  the  master-science  has  been 
discovered,  let  it  show  forth  its  power,  and  we  will  be- 
lieve. Let  those  who  have  studied  the  science  of  Man 
and  History  predict  a  single  event  by  means  of  their  sci- 
ence ;  let  them  even  write  a  single  page  of  history  on  its 
method;  let  them  bring  up  one  child  by  the  rules  for 
directing  and  modifying  moral  development  which  it 
gives.  There  is  another  and  a  higher  test.  Has  the 
true  key  to  human  character  been  found?  Then  let  a 
nobler  type  of  character  be  produced.  Apply  the  sci- 
ence of  humanity,  and  produce  a  better  man. 

Till  the  law  of  history  is  not  only  laid  down,  but 
shown  to  agree  with  the  facts,  or  till  humanity  has  been 
successfully  treated  by  scientific  methods,  I  confess  I 
shall  continue  to  suspect  that  the  new  science  of  Man  is 
merely  a  set  of  terms,  such  as  "development,"  "social 
statics,"  "social  dynamics,"  "organization,"  and,  above 
all,  "law,"  scientifically  applied  to  a  subject  to  which,  in 
truth,  they  are  only  metaphorically  applicable;  I  shall 
continue  to  believe  that  human  actions,  in  history  as  in 


y 


84  ON  THE  STUDY   OF   HISTOllY. 

individual  life  and  in  society,  may  and  do  present  moral 
connections  of  the  most  intimate  and  momentous  kind, 
but  not  that  necessary  sequence  of  causation  on  wliicli 
alone  science  can  be  based ;  I  shall  continue  to  believe 
that  humanity  advances  by  free  effort,  but  that  it  is  not 
developed  according  to  invariable  laws,  such  as,  when 
7discovered,  would  give  birth  to  a  new  science. 

I  confess  that  I  am  not  wholly  unbiased  in  adhering 
to  this  belief.  I  am  ready  to  face  the  conclusions  of  true 
science.  Let  true  science  make  what  discoveries  it  will, 
for  example,  as  to  the  origin  of  life ;  terrible  and  myste- 
rious as  they  may  be,  they  will  not  be  so  terrible  or  mys- 
terious as  death;  they  can  but  show  us  that  we  spring 
from  something  a  little  higher  than  dust,  when  we  know 
already  that  to  dust  we  must  return.  But,  however  we 
may  dally  with  these  things  in  our  hours  of  intellectual 
ease,  there  is  no  man  who  would  not  recoil  from  render- 
ing up  his  free  personality  and  all  it  enfolds  to  become  a 
mere  link  in  a  chain  of  causation,  a  mere  grain  in  a  mass 
of  being,  even  though  the  chain  were  not  more  of  iron 
than  of  gold,  even  though  the  mass  were  all  beautiful 
and  good,  instead  of  being  full  of  evil,  loathsomeness,  and 
horror.  The  enthusiasts  of  science  themselves  shrink 
from  stating  plainly  what,  upon  their  theory,  Man  is,  and 
how  his  essence  differs  from  that  of  a  brute  or  of  a  tree. 
Is  he  responsible  ?  Wherein,  it  must  once  more  be  asked, 
does  his  responsibility  consist?  "Why  praise  or  blame 
him?  Why  reward  or  punish  him?  Why  glow  with 
admiration  at  the  good  deeds  of  history  or  burn  with  in- 
dif^nation  at  the  evil  ?  Is  the  moral  world  a  reality,  or 
is  it  a  mere  phantasmagoria,  a  puppet-show  of  fate? 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  85 

Some  of  these  writers  cling  to  the  ideas  and  love  to 
use  the  names  of  Spirit  and  of  God.  If  spirit  exists, 
what  is  the  spirit  of  man  ?  Did  it  spring  together  with 
the  other  part  of  him  by  physical  development  from  a 
monad,  or  from  a  lower  animal  type  ?  We  have,  deejDly 
rooted  in  our  nature,  a  conviction  of  the  indefeasible,  un- 
dying nature  of  moral  good  and  evil,  the  real  proof  that 
our  moral  part  lives  beyond  the  grave.  Is  this  convic- 
tion a  freak  of  our  moral  nature?  This  God  who  is  to 
reign  over  His  own  world  on  condition  that  He  does  not 
govern  it,  what  is  He  ?  The  Supreme  Law  of  nature  ? 
Then  let  us  call  Him  by  His  right  name.  Supposing 
Him  distinct  from  the  law  of  nature,  is  He  above  it  or 
beneath  it  ?  If  He  is  above  it,  why  is  He  bound  to  ob- 
serve it  in  His  dealings  with  the  spirit  of  man?  "Why 
may  there  not  be  a  whole  sphere  of  existence,  embracing 
the  relations  and  the  communion  between  God  and  man, 
with  which  natural  science  has  no  concern,  and  in  whicli 
her  dictation  is  as  impertinent  as  the  dictation  of  theol- 
ogy in  physics  ?  Why  may  not  spiritual  experience  and 
an  approach  to  the  divine  in  character  be  necessary 
means  of  insight  into  the  things  of  the  spiritual  world,  as 
scientific  instruments  and  scientific  skill  arc  necessary 
means  of  insight  into  the  things  of  the  material  world? 

If  3^ou  give  us  an  hypothesis  of  the  world,  let  it  cover 
the  facts.  The  religious  theory  of  the  world  covers  all 
the  facts ;  the  physical  view  of  the  world  covers  the 
physical  facts  alone. 

And,  after  all,  what  is  this  adamantine  barrier  of  law 
built  up  with  so  much  exultation  between  man  and  the 
source  from  which  hitherto  all  the  goodness  and  beauty 


86  ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

of  human  life  lias  sprung?  In  the  first  place,  what  right 
has  inductive  science  to  the  term  law  ?  Inductive  science 
can  discover  at  most  only  general  facts ;  that  the  facts  are 
more  than  general,  that  they  arc  universal — in  a  word, 
that  they  are  laws,  is  an  assumption  for  which  inductive 
science,  while  she  instinctively  builds  on  it,  can  herself 
supply  no  basis.  I  need  not  tell  my  hearers  how  she  has 
attempted  it  by  the  hand  of  a  great  logician,  or  how  ut- 
terly the  attempt  has  failed.  Let  her  weave  mazes  of 
thought,  observe  upon  observation,  induce  upon  induc- 
tion as  she  will,  she  will  find  the  ground  of  universals 
and  the  basis  of  science  to  be  instinctive  reliance  in  the 
wisdom  and  unity  of  the  Creator.  And  thus  science,  in- 
stead of  excluding  the  supernatural,  does  constant  hom- 
age to  it  for  her  own  existence. 

In  the  second  place,  what  is  the  sum  of  physical  sci- 
ence ?  Compared  with  the  comprehensible  universe  and 
with  conceivable  time,  not  to  speak  of  infinity  and  eter- 
nity, it  is  the  observation  of  a  mere  point,  the  experience 
of  an  instant.  Are  we  warranted  in  founding  any  thing 
upon  such  data,  except  that  which  we  are  obliged  to 
found  on  them,  the  daily  rules  and  processes  necessary 
for  the  natural  life  of  man  ?  We  call  the  discoveries  of 
science  sublime;  and  truly.  But  the  sublimity  belongs 
not  to  that  which  they  reveal,  but  to  that  which  they 
suggest.  And  that  which  they  suggest  is,  that  through 
this  material  glory  and  beauty,  of  which  we  see  a  little 
and  imagine  more,  there  speaks  to  us  a  Being  whose  na- 
ture is  akin  to  ours,  and  who  has  made  our  hearts  capa- 
ble of  such  converse.  Astronomy  has  its  practical  uses, 
without  which  man's  intellect  would  scarcely  rouse  itself 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  87 

to  those  speculations ;  but  its  greatest  result  is  a  revela- 
tion of  immensity  pervaded  by  one  informing  mind ;  and 
this  revelation  is  made  by  astronomy  only  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  the  telescope  reveals  the  stars  to  the  eye 
of  the  astronomer.  Science  finds  no  law  for  the  thoughts 
which,  with  her  aid,  are  ministered  to  man  by  the  starry 
skies.  Science  can  explain  the  hues  of  sunset,  but  she 
can  not  tell  from  what  urns  of  pain  and  pleasure  its  pen- 
siveness  is  poured.  These  things  are  felt  by  all  men,  felt 
the  more  in  proportion  as  the  mind  is  higher.  They  are 
a  part  of  human  nature ;  and  why  should  they  not  be  as 
sound  a  basis  for  philosophy  as  any  other  part?  But  if 
they  are,  the  solid  wall  of  material  law  melts  away,  and 
through  the  whole  order  of  the  material  world  pours  the 
influence,  the  personal  influence,  of  a  spirit  corresponding 
to  our  own. 

Again,  is  it  true  that  the  fixed  or  the  unvarying  is  the 
last  revelation  of  science  ?  These  risings  in  the  scale  of 
created  beings,  this  gradual  evolution  of  planetary  sys- 
tems from  their  centre,  do  they  bespeak  mere  creative 
force?  Do  they  not  rather  bespeak  something  which, 
for  want  of  an  adequate  word,  we  must  call  creative  ef- 
fort, corresponding  to  the  effort  by  which  man  raises  him- 
self and  his  estate  ?  And  where  effort  can  be  discovered, 
does  not  spirit  reign  again  ? 

A  creature  whose  sphere  of  vision  is  a  speck,  whose 
experience  is  a  second,  sees  the  pencil  of  Raphael  mov- 
ing over  the  canvas  of  the  Transfiguration.  It  sees  the 
pencil  moving  over  its  own  speck,  during  its  own  second 
of  existence,  in  one  particular  direction,  and  it  concludes 
that  the  formula  expressing  that  direction  is  the  secret 
of  the  whole. 


88  ox  THE  STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

There  is  truth  as  well  as  vigor  in  the  lines  of  Pope  on 
the  discoveries  of  Newton: 

"  Superior  beings,  when  of  late  they  saw 
A  mortal  man  unfold  all  Nature's  law, 
Admired  such  wisdom  in  an  earthly  sliajic. 
And  sliowcd  a  Newton  as  wc  show  an  aj)e." 

If  they  could  not  show  a  Newton  as  we  show  an  ape,  or 
a  Newton's  discoveries  as  we  show  the  feats  of  apish 
cunning,  it  was  because  Newton  was  not  a  mere  intel- 
lectual power,  but  a  moral  being,  laboring  in  the  serv- 
ice of  his  kind,  and  because  his  discoveries  were  the  re- 
ward, not  of  sagacity  only,  but  of  virtue.  We  can  imag- 
ine a  mere  organ  of  vision  so  constructed  by  Omnipo- 
tence as  to  see  at  a  glance  infinitely  more  than  could  be 
discovered  by  all  the  Newtons,  but  the  animal  which 
possessed  that  organ  would  not  be  higher  than  the  moral 
being. 

Reason,  no  doubt,  is  our  appointed  guide  to  truth. 
The  limits  set  to  it  by  each  dogmatist,  at  the  point  where 
it  comes  into  conflict  with  his  dogma,  are  human  limits ; 
its  providential  limits  we  can  learn  only  by  dutifully 
exerting  it  to  the  utmost.  Yet  reason  must  be  impartial 
in  the  acceptance  of  data  and  in  the  demand  of  proof. 
Facts  are  not  the  less  facts  because  they  are  not  facts  of 
sense;  materialism  is  not  necessarily  enlightenment;  it 
is  possible  to  be  at  once  chimerical  and  gross. 

"We  may  venture,  without  any  ingratitude  to  Science 
as  the  source  of  material  benefits  and  the  training-school 
of  inductive  rea.son,  to  doubt  whether  the  great  secret  of 
the  moral  world  is  likely  to  be  discovered  in  her  labora- 
tor}",  or  to  be  revealed  to  those  minds  which  have  been 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  89 

imbued  only  -with  lier  thoughts,  and  trained  in  her  pro- 
•  cesses  alone.  Some,  indeed,  among  the  men  of  science 
who  have  given  us  sweeping  theories  of  the  world,  seem 
to  be  not  only  one-sided  in  their  view  of  the  facts,  leav- 
ing out  of  sight  the  phenomena  of  our  moral  nature,  but 
to  want  one  of  the  two  faculties  necessary  for  sound  in- 
vestigation. They  are  acute  observers,  but  bad  reason- 
ers.  And  science  must  not  expect  to  be  exempt  from 
the  rules  of  reasoning.  We  can  not  give  credit  for  evi- 
dence which  does  not  exist,  because  if  it  existed  it  would 
be  of  a  scientific  kind ;  nor  can  we  pass  at  a  bound  from 
slight  and  precarious  premises  to  a  tremendous  conclu- 
sion, because  the  conclusion  would  annihilate  the  spirit- 
ual nature  and  annul  the  divine  origin  of  man. 

That  the  actions  of  men  are,  like  the  events  of  the 
physical  world,  governed  by  invariable  law,  and  that,  con- 
sequently, there  is  an  exact  science  of  man  and  history, 
is  a  theory  of  which,  even  in  the  attenuated  form  it  is 
now  beginning  to  assume,  we  have  still  to  seek  the  proof. 
But  a  science  of  history  is  one  thing,  a  philosophy  of  his- 
tory is  another.  A  science  of  history  can  rest  on  noth- 
ing short  of  causation;  a  philosophy  of  history  rests 
upon  connection — such  connection  as  we  know,  and  in 
every  process  and  word  of  life  assume,  that  there  is  be- 
tween the  action  and  its  motive,  between  motives  and 
circumstances,  between  the  conduct  of  men  and  the  effect 
produced  upon  their  character,  between  historic  antece- 
dents and  their  results.  So  far  is  the  philosophy  of  his- 
tory from  being  a  new  discovery,  that  the  most  meagre 
chronicle  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  painted  records  of 
Egyptian  kings,  as  they  show  some  connection  between 


90  ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

events,  present  the  germ  of  a  pliilosopby ;  of  the  philos- 
ophy which,, in  its  highest  form,  traces  the  most  general 
connections,  and  traces  them  through  the  whole  history 
of  man. 

■  The  philosophy  of  history,  in  its  highest  sense,  as  was 
iDefore  said,  is  the  offspring  of  a  great  fact  which  has  but 
recently  dawned  upon  mankind.  _That  fact  is  the  moral 
unity  of  the  human  race.  The  softening  down  of  mere 
dogmatic  and  ecclesiastical  divisions  between  different 
parts  of  Christendom,  the  intercourse,  the  moral  relation, 
the  treaties  and  bonds  ratified  by  common  appeals  to 
God,  into  which  Christendom  has  entered  with  nations 
beyond  its  pale,  have  let  in  the  conviction  that  virtue 
and  truth,  however  they  may  vary  in  their  measure,  arc 
in  their  essence  the  same  every  where,  and  every  where 
divine.  It  may  be  that  the  growth  of  this  conviction  is 
a  more  potent  cause  of  the  change  which  wc  see  passing 
over  the  face  of  the  world  than  even  the  final  decay, 
now  visibly  going  on,  of  feudal  institutions,  and  of  the 
social  system  with  which  they  arc  connected.  Its  conse- 
quences, to  those  who  have  imagined  that  the  vital  faith 
of  man  rests  on  ecclesiastical  divisions,  arc  not  unattend- 
ed with  perplexity  and  dismay.  But  if  the  churches  of 
nildebrand,  Luther,  and  Calvin  are  passing  away,  above 
them  rises  that  church  of  pure  religion  and  virtue  to 
which  in  their  controversies  with  each  other  they  have 
all  implicitly  appealed,  and  which  therefore  is  above 
them  all.  A  certain  man  was  hung  b}'^  his  enemies 
blindfolded  over  what  he  supposed  to  be  a  precipice,  with 
a  rope  in  his  hands;  he  clung  till  his  sinews  cracked, 
and  he  had  tasted  the  bitterness  of  death ;  then,  letting 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   niSTORY.  91 

go  tbe  rope,  he  found  that  lie  had  been  hanging  but  half 
a  foot  from  the  ground. 

Moral  discoveries  are  generally  followed  by  exaggera- 
tion. The  unity  of  the  human  race  has  been  exagger- 
ated into  identity,  and  a  strange  vision  has  arisen  of  an 
aggregate  humanity,  of  which  each  man  is  a  manifesta- 
tion and  an  organ,  and  into  which  we  at  death  return ; 
the  difference  between  death  and  life  being  that  the  one 
is  an  objective,  the  other  a  subjective  existence.  This 
wild  realism  is  broached,  singularly  enough,  by  a  school 
of  thinkers  who  pour  contempt  on  metaphysical  entities. 
It  is,  in  fact,  part  of  a  desperate  attempt  to  satisfy  the  re- 
ligious instincts  of  man  and  his  sense  of  immortalit}^, 
when  an  irrational  philosophy,  discarding  all  sources  of 
truth  but  the  observation  of  the  outward  sense,  has  cut 
off  the  belief  in  the  invisible  world  and  God.  Among 
the  evidences  of  religion,  the  fact  that  the  blankest  scien- 
tific atheism  has  been  compelled  to  invent  for  itself  a 
kind  of  divinity  and  a  kind  of  spiritual  world,  and  to 
borrow  the  worship  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  will 
not  hold  the  lowest  place. 

No  one  can  doubt,  if  he  would,  that  through  the  life  of 
each  of  us  there  is  carried  a  distinct  line  of  moral  identi- 
ty, along  which  the  retrospective  conscience  runs.  No 
one  can  persuade  himself  that  this  line  breaks  off  at 
death,  so  that  when  a  man  dies  it  ceases  to  signify  what 
his  particular  life  has  been.  No  one  can  divest  himself 
of  the  sense  of  individual  responsibility,  or  imagine  him- 
self, by  any  effort  of  fancy,  becoming  a  part  of  the  mass 
of  humanity  and  ceasing  to  be  himself 

It  is  not  the  less  certain  that  we  are  in  a  real  and  deep 


92  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

sense  "members  one  of  another,''  and  that  moral  philos- 
ophy may  gain  new  truth  and  additional  power  by  taking 
the  philosophy  of  history  into  its  counsels,  and  contem- 
plating not  only  individual  humanity,  but  the  whole  es- 
tate of  man. 

The  progress  of  the  human  race  is  a  truth  of  which 
every-day  language  is  full ;  one  which  needs  no  logical 
proof  and  no  rhetorical  enforcement.  That  the  products 
of  human  action,  thought,  contrivance,  labor,  do  not  all 
perish  with  their  authors,  but  accumulate  from  generation 
to  generation,  is  in  itself  enough  to  make  each  generation 
an  advance  upon  that  which  went  before  it.  The  move- 
ment of  history  is  complex.  We  asked  in  a  former  lec- 
ture what  was  its  leading  part,  and  found  reason  to  think 
that  it  was  the  gradual  elevation  of  the  human  character, 
to  which  all  the  other  parts  of  the  movement,  intellectual 
and  material,  conduce.  The.  rival  claims  of  intellect  to 
be  the  leading  object  in  the  history  of  humanity,  though 
strongly  put  forward,  will  scarcely  bear  examination. 
Intellect  may  be  used  for  good  and  it  may  be  used  for 
evil ;  it  may  be  the  blessing  of  humanity  or  the  scourge; 
it  may  advance  the  progress  of  mankind,  as  it  did  when 
wielded  by  Luther,  or  retard  it,  as  it  did  when  wielded 
by  Bonaparte.  Whether  it  shall  be  used  for  good  or 
evil,  whether  it  shall  be  the  blessing  of  humanity  or  the 
scourge,  whether  it  shall  advance  progress  or  retard  it, 
depends  on  the  moral  character  of  the  possessor,  which 
determines  its  employment.  (^And  this  being  the  case, 
intellect  must  be  subordinate  to  moral  character  in  his- 
toryr^ 

Character,  indeed,  seems  to  be  the  only  thing  within 


OlSr  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  93 

the  range  of  our  comprehension  for  the  sake  of  which  we 
can  conceive  God  having  been  moved  to  create  man. 
We  needlessly  put  a  stumbling-block  in  our  own  way  by 
importing  into  the  divine  nature  the  Stoic  notion  of  self- 
sufiicing  happiness.  The  highest  nature  which  we  can 
conceive  is  not  one  which  disdains,  but  one  which  needs 
affection ;  and  worthy  affection  can  only  spring  from  or 
be  excited  by  a  character  of  a  certain  kind.  The  suppo- 
sition that  man  was  created  to  love  his  Creator  and  to  be 
the  object  of  his  Creator's  love  accords  with  our  concep- 
tions both  of  God  and  man.  It  does  not  accord  with  our 
conception  of  God  to  suppose  that  He  created  man  with 
such  capacity  for  suffering  as,  well  as  for  happiness,  and 
placed  him  in  such  a  world  as  this,  merely  to  make  an 
exhibition  of  His  own  power  or  to  glorify  Himself.  To 
make  an  exhibition  of  power  belongs  to  the  restlessness 
of  mortal  strength,  not  to  the  completeness  and  calmness 
of  Omnipotence.  To  seek  glory  belongs  to  weak  human 
ambition ;  and  equivocal  indeed  would  be  the  glory  of 
creation  if  the  history  of  man  were  to  be  its  measure. 
One  historian  after  another  sets  himself  to  write  the  pan- 
egyric of  his  favorite  period,  and  each  panegyric  is  an 
apology  or  a  falsehood. 

Our  hearts  acquiesce,  too,  in  the  dispensation  which, 
instead  of  creating  character  in  its  perfection,  leaves  it  to 
be  perfected  by  effort.  "We  can  conceive  no  character  in 
a  created  being  worthy  of  affection  which  is  not  produced 
by  a  moral  struggle ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  greater 
the  moral  difficulties  that  have  been  overcome,  the  more 
worthy  of  affection  does  the  character  seem.  Try  to  con- 
ceive a  being  created  morally  perfect  without  effort,  you 


94  ON   TUE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

will  produce  a  picture  of  insipidity  which  no  heart  can 
love. 

And  effort  is  the  law,  if  law  it  is  to  be  called,  of  His- 
tory. History  is  a  scries  of  struggles  to  elevate  the  char- 
Y -Jeter  of  humanity  in  all  its  aspects,  religious,  intellectual, 
social,  political,  rising  sometimes  to  an  agony  of  aspira- 
tion and  exertion,  and  frequently  followed  by  lassitude 
and  relapse,  as  great  moral  efforts  are  in  tlie  case  of  indi- 
vidual men.  Those  who  espouse  the  theory  of  necessary 
development  as  the  key  to  history  are  driven  to  strange 
consequences.  They  are  compelled  to  represent  the  tor- 
pid sensualism  of  the  Roman  Empire  as  an  advance  upon 
the  vigorous  though  narrow  virtue  of  the  Republic.  I 
see  not  how  they  escape  from  allowing,  what  with  their 
historical  sympathies  they  would  not  be  disposed  to  al- 
low, that  in  the  history  of  our  own  country  the  Restora- 
tion is  an  advance  upon  the  Puritan  Republic.  The  facts 
of  history  correspond  better  with  our  moral  sense  if  we 
take  the  view  that  the  awakening  of  moral  life  in  the 
race,  as  in  the  man,  often  manifests  itself  in  endeavors 
which  are  overstrained,  chimerical,  misdirected,  higher 
than  the  general  nature  can  sustain,  and  that  upon  these 
endeavors  a  reaction  is  apt  to  ensue.  During  the  reac- 
tion some  of  the  intellectual  fruits  of  the  crisis  may  be 
gathered  in,  but  the  moral  nature  languishes ;  though  the 
elevation  of  the  moral  type  gained  by  the  previous  effort 
does  not  perish,  but  is  gained  forever,  and,  so  far  as  it  is 
true,  enters  forever  as  an  exalting  influence  into  the 
thoughts  and  lives  of  men. 

But  here  another  problem  presents  itself,  which  may 
be  beyond  our  power  fully  to  solve,  but  as  to  which  we 


ON  THE   STUDY   OP^   HISTORY.  95 

can  not  forbear  to  ask,  and  may  possibly  obtain,  some 
satisfaction.  In  the  material  and  intellectual  world  we 
are  content  to  see  order  and  design.  The  law  of  gravita- 
tion, the  laws  of  the  association  of  ideas,  so  far  as  they 
go,  perfectly  satisfy  our  minds.  But  in  history  it  is  oth- 
erwise. Here  we  are  not  satisfied  with  the  discovery  of 
a  law,  whether  of  development  or  of  effort ;  we  desire, 
we  can  not  help  desiring,  to  see  not  only  order  and  de- 
sign, but  justice. 

We  look  over  history.  We  see  the  man  almost  piti- 
lessly sacrificed  to  the  race.  Scarcely  any  great  step  in 
human  j^rogress  is  made  without  multitudes  of  victims. 
Each  pulling  down  of  worn-out  institutions  brings  per- 
plexity and  suffering  on  that  generation,  however  preg- 
nant with  good  it  may  be  to  the  next.  Every  great 
change  of  opinion  is  accompanied,  to  one  generation,  by 
the  distress  of  doubt.  Every  revolution  in  trade  or  in- 
dustry, however  beneficent  in  its  results,  involves  suffer- 
ings to  the  masses  which  the  world  is  long  in  learning 
how  to  avert.  In  the  rude  commencements  of  govern- 
ment and  law,  what  evils  do  men  endure  from  tyranny 
and  anarchy !  How  many  of  the  weaker  members  of  the 
race  perish  of  want  and  cold  before  feeble  invention  can 
bridge  the  gulf  between  savage  and  civilized  life  ! 

It  is  difficult  to  doubt  that  in  the  early  ages  of  the 
world  races  are  brought  forward  to  take  the  lead  in  his- 
tory by  the  cruel  test  of  pre-eminence  in  war  and  success 
in  conquering  the  neighboring  races.  To  primitive  tribes, 
and  even  to  nations  long  civilized  but  not  yet  penetrated 
with  the  sense  of  our  common  humanity,  conquest  seems 
no  crime,  but  either  a  natural  appetite  or  an  heroic  enter- 


96  ON   THE   STUDY   OF   niSTORY. 

prise ;  and  in  the  earliest  ages  the  circuinstauccs  of  sav- 
age hordes  arc  such  that  they  arc  inevitably  driven  on 
each  other,  or  on  the  neighboring  nations,  in  quest  of 
fresh  hunting-fields,  new  pastures,  or  licher  and  sunnier 
lands.  The  human  race  reaps  from  this  process  a  moral 
as  well  as  a  physical  benefit.  There  is  a  connection,  not 
clearly  traced,  yet  certain,  between  the  stronger  qualities 
in  human  character,  such  as  courage,  and  the  tenderer 
qualities,  such  as  mercy,  while  conversely  there  is  a  cer- 
tain connection  between  cowardice  and  cruelty ;  and  the 
moral  as  well  as  the  ph3'-sical  basis  of  humanity  requires 
to  be  laid  in  fortitude  and  strength. 

In  philosophy  and  science,  again,  the  race,  like  the  man, 
advances  by  the  trial  of  successive  hypotheses,  which  are 
adopted  and  rejected  in  turn  till  the  true  one  is  at  length 
found.  In  these  successive  trials  and  rejections,  with  the 
mental  efforts  and  sacrifices  they  involve,  humanity  gains, 
what  no  sudden  illumination  could  give  it,  large  spiritual 
experience  and  a  deep  sense  of  the  value  of  truth.  But 
error  is  the  portion  of  those  generations  by  whom  the 
false  hypotheses  are  tried.  Nor  is  this  process  confined 
to  the  domain  of  mere  intellectual  truth ;  theories  of  life 
and  modes  of  self- culture  are  in  like  manner  tried  and 
found  impracticable  or  incomplete,  at  the  expense  of 
thousands,  among  whom  are  often  numbered  the  flower 
of  mankind.  What  effusion  of  blood,  what  rending  of 
affections,  what  misery  has  been  undergone  to  try  out  the 
question  between  different  theories  of  society  and  govern- 
ment, each  of  which  was  plausible  in  itself!  What  an 
expenditure  of  high  and  aspiring  spirits  was  necessary 
to  prove   that  the   monastic  and  contemplative  life,  in 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTOKY.  97 

spite  of  its  strong  natural  attractions,  was  not  practicable 
for  man ! 

Cast  your  eyes  over  the  world,  and  see  bow  the  masses  / 
of  men,  bow  tbe  majority  of  nations,  labor  not  only  in  / 
mental,  but  in  moral  degradation,  to  support  a  high  and/ 
fine  type  of  humanity  in  the  few.     Examine  any  beauti- 
ful work  of  art,  and  consider  how  coarse  and  dark  is  the 
life  of  those  who  have  dug  its  materials,  or  the  materials 
for  the  tools  which  wrought  it,  out  of  the  quarry  or  the 
mine.    Things  absolutely  essential  to  intellectual  progress 
are  furnished  by  classes  which  for  ages  to  come  the  great 
results  of  intellect  can  not  reach,  and  the  lamp  which 
■lights  the  studies  of  a  Bacon  or  Leibnitz  is  fed  by  the 
wild,  rude  fisherman  of  the  Northern  Sea. 

It  is  true  that  wherever  service  is  rendered,  we  may 
trace  some  reciprocal  advantage,  either  immediate  or  not 
long  deferred.  The  most  abstract  discoveries  of  science 
gradually  assume  a  practical  form,  and  descend  in  the 
shape  of  material  conveniences  and  comforts  to  the  masses 
whose  labor  supported  the  discoverer  in  intellectual  leis- 
ure. Nor  are  the  less  fortunate  ages  of  history  and  the 
lower  states  of  society  without  their  consolations.  The 
intervals  between  great  moral  and  intellectual  eftbrts  have 
functions  of  their  own.  Imperial  Eome,  amidst  her  moral 
lassitude,  makes  great  roads,  promotes  materir.l  civiliza- 
tion, codifies  the  law.  The  last  century  had  no  soul  for 
poetry,  but  it  took  up  with  melody,  and  produced  the 
Ilandels  and  Mozarts.  Lower  pains  go  with  lower  pleas- 
ures, and  the  savage  life  is  not  without  its  physical  im- 
munities and  enjoyments.  The  life  of  intense  hope  that 
is  lived  in  the  morning  of  great  revolutions  may  partly 

E 


98  ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

make  np  for  tlic  danger,  tlic  distress,  and  the  disappoint- 
ment of  their  later  hour.  But  these,  if  they  arc  touches 
of  kindness  and  providence  in  Nature,  welcome  as  proof 
that  she  is  not  a  blind  or  cruel  power,  fall  far  short  of  the 
full  measure  of  justice. 

There  are  nations  which  have  lived  and  perished  half 
civilized,  and  in  a  low  moral  stijte,  as  we  may  be  sure 
was  the  case  with  Egypt,  and  have  played  but  a  humble 
part,  though  they  have  played  a  part,  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  There  are  races  which  have  become  extinct, 
or  have  been  reduced  to  a  mere  remnant,  and  whose  only 
work  it  has  been  to  act  as  pioneers  for  more  gifted  races, 
or  even  to  serve  as  the  whetstone  for  their  valor  and  en- 
terprise in  the  conflict  of  primitive  tribes.  There  are 
other  races,  such  as  the  negro  races  of  Africa,  which  have 
remained  to  the  present  time,  without  progress  or  appar- 
ent capability  of  progress,  waiting  to  be  taken  up  into  the 
general  movement  by  their  brethren  who  are  more  ad- 
vanced, when,  in  the  course  of  Providence,  the  age  of 
military  enterprise  is  past,  and  that  of  religious  and  phi- 
lanthropic enterprise  is  come.  They  wait,  perhaps,  not 
in  vain  ;  but,  in  the  interim,  do  not  myriads  live  and  die 
in  a  state  little  above  that  of  brutes? 

The  question  then  is.  Can  we  find  any  hypothesis  in 
accordance  with  the  facts  of  history  which  will  reconcile 
the  general  course  of  history  to  our  sense  of  justice?  I 
say,  to  our  sense  of  justice.  I  assume  here  that  man  has 
really  been  created  in  the  image  of  God  ;  that  the  moral- 
ity of  man  points  true,  however  remote!}'',  to  the  morality 
of  God;  that  Jiu  man  justice  is  identical  with  divine  jus- 
tiQej_andjs .  therefore  a  real  key  to  the  history  of  the 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  99 

world.  "If,"  says  Clarke,  "justice  and  goodness  be  not 
the  same  in  God  as  in  our  ideas,  then  we  mean  nothing 
when  we  say  that  God  is  necessarily  just  and  good ;  and, 
for  the  same  reason,  it  may  as  well  be  said  that  we  know 
not  what  we  mean  when  we  affirm  that  He  is  an  intelli- 
gent and  wise  Being ;  and  there  will  be  no  foundation  at 
all  left  on  which  we  can  fix  any  thing.  Thus  the  moral 
ailrihuies  of  God,  however  they  be  acknowledged  in  words, 
yet  in  reality  they  are  by  these  men  entirely  taken  away ; 
and,  upon  the  same  grounds,  the  natural  attributes  may 
also  be  denied.  And  so,  upon  the  whole,  this  opinion 
likewise,  if  we  argue  upon  it  consistently,  must  finally 
recur  to  absolute  atheism."  Either  to  absolute  atheism 
or  to  the  belief  in  a  God  who  is  mere  power,  and  to  re- 
ligion which  is  mere  submission  to  power,  without  moral 
sympathy  or  allegiance. 

I  will  not  turn  aside  here  to  combat  the  opposite  the- 
ory. I  will  merely  observe  by  the  way  that  these  things 
have  their  history.  If  the  doctrines  of  any  established 
Church  are  not  absolute  and  final  truth,  its  corporate  in- 
terests are  apt  ultimately  to  come  into  collision  with  the 
moral  instincts  of  man  pressing  onward,  in  obedience  to 
his  conscience,  toward  the  farther  knowledge  of  religious 
truth.  Then  arises  a  terrible  conflict.  To  save  their 
threatened  dominion,  the  defenders  of  ecclesiastical  inter- 
ests use,  while  they  can,  the  civil  sword,  and  wage  witb 
that  weapon  contests  which  fill  the  world  with  worse 
than  blood.  They  massacre,  they  burn,  they  torture, 
they  drag  human  nature  into  depths  of  deliberate  cruel- 
ty which,  without  their  teaching,  it  could  never  have 
known ;  they  train  men,  and  not  only  men,  but  women, 


100  ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

to  look  on  wdth  pious  joy  while  frames  broken  with  the 
rack  are  borne  from  the  dungeon  of  the  Inquisition  to 
its  pile.  Uniting  intrigue  with  force,  they  creep  to  the 
ear  of  kings,  of  courtiers,  of  royal  concubines ;  they  con- 
sent, as  the  price  of  protection,  to  bless  and  sanctify  des- 
potism in  its  foulest  form;  they  excite  bloody  wars  of 
opinion  against  nations  struggling  to  be  free.  Still,  the 
day  goes  against  them  ;  humanity  exerts  its  power ;  exe- 
cutioners fail ;  sovereigns  discover  that  it  little  avails  the 
king  to  rule  the  people  if  the  Magian  is  to  rule  the  king ; 
public  opinion  sways  the  world,  and  the  hour  of  Philip 
II.,  of  Pure  la  Chaise,  of  IMadame  de  Maintenon,  is  gone, 
never  to  return.  Then  follows  a  hopeless  struggle  for 
the  last  relics  of  religious  protection,  for  exclusive  polit- 
ical privileges,  and  for  tests ;  a  struggle  in  which  religion 
is  made  to  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  the  constant 
enemy  of  improvement  and  of  justice — religion,  from 
which  all  true  improvement  and  all  true  justice  spring. 
This  struggle,  too,  approaches  its  inevitable  close.  Then 
recourse  is  had,  in  the  last  resort,  to  intellectual  intrigue, 
and  the  power  of  sophistry  is  invoked  to  place  man  in 
the  dilemma  between  submission  to  an  authority  which 
has  lost  his  allegiance  and  the  utter  abandonment  of  his 
belief  in  God — a  desperate  policy ;  for,  placed  between 
falsehood  and  the  abyss,  humanity  has  always  had  grace 
to  choose  the  abyss,  conscious  as  it  is  that  to  fly  from 
falsehood,  through  whatever  clouds  and  darkness,  is  to 
fly  to  the  God  of  truth.  In  weighing  the  arguments  put 
before  us  on  these  questions,  let  us  not  leave  out  of  sight 
influences  whose  fatal  power  history  has  recorded  in  her 
bloodiest  page. 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  101 

Assuming,  then,  that  human  justice  is  the  same  quality 
as  divine  justice,  the  idea  of  moral  waste  in  the  divine 
government,  as  displayed  in  history,  is  one  in  which  we 
shall  never  force  our  hearts  to  acquiesce.  If  moral  be- 
ings are  wasted  by  the  Creator,  what  is  saved?  Butler, 
indeed,  suggests  the  analogy  of  physical  nature,  and  inti- 
mates that  we  may  resign  ourselves  to  the  waste  of  souls 
as  we  do  to  the  waste  of  seeds.  But  in  the  case  of  the 
seed  nothing  is  wasted  but  the  form ;  the  matter  remains 
indestructible ;  while  misery  and  despair  there  is  none. 
The  analogy  of  animals,  on  which  Butler  elsewhere 
touches  in  a  different  connection,  seems  more  formidable. 
Here  are  beings  sentient,  to  a  certain  extent  intelligent, 
and  capable  of  pleasure  and  pain  like  ourselves,  among 
whom  good  and  evil  seem  to  be  distributed  by  a  blind 
fate,  regardless  of  any  merits  or  demerits  of  theirs.  The 
only  answer  that  can  at  present  be  given  to  the  question 
thus  raised  seems  to  be  this :  that  we  are  not  more  cer- 
tain of  our  own  existence  than  we  are  that  no  fate  or  law 
regardless  of  morality  rules  us ;  and  that  as  to  animals, 
their  destiny  is  simply  beyond  our  knowledge.  Was 
man  to  be  placed  in  the  world  alone  ?  Was  he  to  be  left 
without  the  sentiments  and  the  moral  influences  which 
spring  from  his  relations  with  his  mute  companions  and 
helpmates?  Or  could  he,  the  heir  of  pain  in  this  world, 
be  placed  amid  a  painless  creation,  without  destroying 
the  sympathy  of  things?  It  may  be  observed,  too,  that 
in  the  state  of  a  large  portion  of  the  animal  creation  there 
seems  to  be  a  progressive  improvement,  not  taking  the 
form  of  physical  development,  but  depending  on  and 
bearing  a  faint  analogy  to  the  improvement  of  the  hn- 


102  ON   THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY. 

mail  race.  As  the  human  race  spreads  over  the  world 
and  cultivates  it,  the  carnivorous  and  ferocious  animals 
disappear,  and  those  more  peaceful  and  happier  tribes  re- 
main which  are  domesticated  by  man.  If  man  himself 
should  become,  as  some  seem  to  expect,  less  carnivorous 
as  he  grows  more  civilized,  his  relations  with  animals 
will  of  course  become  still  more  kindly,  and  their  lot  still 
better.  This  remark  does  not  go  far ;  it  applies  only  to 
a  portion  of  the  animal  creation ;  but,  so  far  as  it  goes,  it 
tends  to  prove  that  animals  arc  not  under  blind  physical 
law,  but  under  providential  care ;  and  it  suggests  a  sort 
of  development,  if  that  word  is  to  be  used,  very  different 
from  the  organic  development  which  a  certain  school  of 
science  is  seeking  every  where  to  establish.  Eational  in- 
quiries into  the  nature,  character,  and  lot  of  animals  seem 
to  be  but  just  beginning  to  be  made,  and  in  their  course 
they  may  clear  up  part  of  that  which  is  now  dark. 
Meantime,  mere  defect  of  knowledge  is  no  stumbling- 
block.  There  is  a  faith  against  reason  which  consists  i  n 
believing,  or  hypocritically  pretending  to  believe,  vital 
facts  upon  bad  evidence,  when  our  conscience  bids  us 
rest  satisfied  only  with  the  best;  but  there  is  also  a  ra- 
tional faith  which  consists  in  trusting,  where  our  knowl- 
edge fails,  to  the  goodness  and  wisdom,  which,  so  far  as 
our  knowledge  extends,  are  found  worthy  of  our  trust. 

Butler,  while  he  built  his  whole  system  on  analogy,  de- 
clined to  inquire  strictly  what  the  logical  force  of  analogy 
was.  The  real  ground  of  his  great  argument  seems  to  be 
this — that  the  dealings  of  the  same  Being  (in  this  instance 
the  Creator)  may  be  expected  always  to  be  the  same ; 
which  is  true,  with  this  momentous  qualification,  that  the 


ON   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  103 

thing  dealt  with,  must  be  the  same  also.  There  is  not 
only  no  assurance,  there  is  not  even  the  faintest  presump- 
tion that  as  God  deals  with  seeds,  so  He  will  deal  with 
lives,  or  that,  as  He  deals  with  mortal  lives,  so  will  He 
deal  with  immortal  souls.  The  only  analogy  really  ap- 
plicable to  these  matters  seems  to  be  that  of  the  moral 
nature  of  man,  on  which  its  Maker  has  impressed  His 
own  image,  and  which,  when  at  its  best,  and  therefore 
likest  Him,  shrinks  from  the  thought  of  moral  waste,  and 
if  it  is  compelled  to  inflict  suffering  by  way  of  punish- 
ment, does  so  not  to  destroy,  but  to  save.  The  j)assage 
of  Origen,  of  which  Butler's  analogy  is  an  expansion,  is 
taken  from  the  literature  of  an  age  not  too  deep-thinking 
or  too  deep-feeling  to  endure  the  idea  of  an  arbitrary 
God.  To__us  Jhat  idea  is_u.tterly  unendurable.  If  we 
could  believe  God  to  be  arbitrary,  q,boYe  the  throne  of 
God  in  our  hearts  would  be  the  throne  of  justice.  If  we 
translate  Origen's  words  into  philosophic  language,  do 
not  they,  and  does  not  the  argument  which  Butler  has 
based  on  them,  come  to  this — that  God  is  bound  to  deal 
with  the  spiritual  as  He  deals  with  the  material  world? 
And  if  this  is  true,  is  He  not  a  Fate  rather  than  a  God? 
We  can  not  help  divining,  then,  that  the  true  hypoth- 
esis of  history  will  be  one  which  will  correspond  to  our 
sense  of  justice.  But  where  can  such  an  hypothesis  be 
found?  Is  there  any  color  of  reason  for  adopting  a 
view  of  history  which  would  suppose  a  deeper  commu- 
nity of  the  human  race  as  to  its  object  and  its  destiny 
than  common  language  implies,  and  which  would  stake 
less  than  is  commonly  assumed  to  bo  staked  on  the  indi- 
vidual life? 


104  ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

To  such  a  view  seem  to  point  all  the  instincts  "wliicli 
lead  man  to  sacrifice  his  individual  life  to  his  fellows,  his 
country,  and,  when  his  vision  becomes  more  enlarged,  to 
his  kind.  These  instincts  are  regardless  of  the  state  of 
moral  perfection  at  which  he  whom  they  propel  to  de- 
struction has  personally  arrived.  They  do  not  calculate 
whether  the  soldier  who  rushes  first  into  the  breach,  thv) 
man  who  plunges  into  a  river  to  save  one  who  is  drown- 
ing, the  physician  who  loses  his  own  life  in  exploring  an 
infectious  disease,  is,  to  use  the  common  phrase,  fit  to  die. 
They  seem  distinctly  to  aim  at  a'  moral  object  beyond 
the  individual  moral  life,  and  affecting  the  character  of 
the  race.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  they  give  strong  assur- 
ance to  him  whose  life  they  take  that  it  is  good  for  him 
to  die. 

That  desire  of  living  after  death  in  the  grateful  mem- 
ory of  our  kind,  or,  as  we  fondly  call  it,  of  immortality, 
to  which  the  enjoyment  of  so  many  lives  is  sacrificed,  is 
it  a  mere  trick  of  nature  to  lure  man  to  labor  against  his 
own  interest  for  her  general  objects  ?  or  does  it  denote  a 
real  connection  of  the  generation  to  which  the  hero,  the 
writer,  the  founder  belongs  with  the  generations  that  will 
succeed  ? 

Again :  what  is  it  that  persuades  the  lowest  and  most 
suffering  classes  of  society,  when  the  superiority  of  phys- 
ical force  is  on  their  side,  to  rest  quiet  beneath  their  lot, 
and  forbear  from  breaking  in  with  the  strong  hand  upon 
civilization,  which  in  its  tardy  progress  will  scarcely 
bring  better  times  to  their  children's  children,  and  has 
too  plainly  no  better  times  in  store  for  them  ?  Is  it  not 
an  instinct  which  bids  them  respect  the  destinies  of  the 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF  HISTORY.  105 

race?  And  why  should  they  be  bidden  to  respect  the 
destinies  of  the  race,  if  those  destinies  are  not  theirs? 

Why  this  close  interlacing  of  one  moral  being  with 
the  rest  in  society,  if,  after  all,  each  is  to  stand  or  fall 
entirely  alone  ?  Why  this  succession  of  ages,  and  this 
long  intricate  drama  of  history,  if  all  that  is  to  be  done 
could  have  been  done  as  well  by  a  single  set  of  actors  in 
a  single  scene  ? 

If  each  man  stood  entirely  alone  in  his  moral  life,  un- 
supported and  unredeemed  by  his  kind,  nature,  the  min- 
ister of  eternal  justice,  would  surely  be  less  lavish  of  in- 
dividual life,  and  of  all  that  is  bound  up  in  it,  than  she 
is.  At  least  she  would  show  some  disposition  to  dis- 
criminate. Those  myriads  on  whom,  though  the  acci- 
dents of  war,  changes  and  failures  of  trade,  earthquakes, 
plagues,  and  famines,  the  tower  of  Siloam  falls,  as  we 
know  they  are  not  sinners  above  all  the  Galileans,  so  we 
can  scarcely  think  that  the}^,  above  all  the  Galileans,  are 
prepared  to  die. 

Society  is  the  necessary  medium  of  moral  development 
to  man.  Yet  even  society,  to  serve  its  various  needs, 
sacrifices  to  a  great  extent  the  moral  development  of  in- 
dividual men.  It  is  vain  to  say  that  those  who  are  put, 
through  life,  to  the  coarsest  uses,  the  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  to  the  social  system,  can  rise  to  the 
highest  and  most  refined  moral  ideal,  though  we  know 
that  in  merit  toward  society  they  are,  and  are  sure  that 
in  the  eye  of  God  they  must  be,  equal  to  those  who  do. 
Delicacy  of  sentiment,  which  is  essential  to  our  notion  of 
the  moral  ideal,  can  scarcely  exist  without  fineness  of  in- 
tellect, or  fineness  of  intellect  without  high  mental  culti- 
E  2 


106  ON  THE   STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

vntion.  And  if  "wc  were  to  say  that  tbe  want  of  that 
which  high  mental  culture  confers  is  no  loss,  we  should 
stultify  our  own  efforts  to  promote  and  elevate  educa- 
tion. Even  the  most  liberal  callings  carry  with  them  an 
inherent  bias  scarcely  compatible  with  the  equable  and 
flawless  perfection  which  constitutes  the  ideal.  Busy 
action  and  solitary  thought  arc  both  necessary  for  the 
common  service ;  yet  inevitable  moral  evils  and  imper- 
fections beset  alike  those  who  act  in  the  crowd  and  those 
who  think  alone.  Each  profession  has  its  point  of  honor, 
requisite  for  social  purposes,  but  overstrained  with  re- 
gard to  general  morality,  and  naturally  apt  to  be  accom- 
panied by  some  relaxation  of  the  man's  general  moral 
tone.  We  forgive  much  to  a  soldier  for  valor  in  the 
field,  much  to  a  judge  for  perfect  integrity  on  the  bench 
of  justice;  and  wc  can  hardly  suppose  that  the  con- 
science of  the  soldier  or  the  judge  will  not  admit  into  its 
decisions  something  of  the  same  indulgence.  Did  not 
the  strictest  of  Universities  choose  as  her  chancellor  a 
man  of  the  world,  a  man  of  pleasure,  and  a  duelist,  be- 
cause as  a  soldier  and  a  citizen  he  had  done  his  duty  su- 
premely well  ? 

Does  it  follow  that  the  moral  law  is  to  be  relaxed  on 
any  point,  or  that  any  man  is  to  propose  to  himself  a 
lower  standard  of  morality  in  any  respect?  No;  it  only 
follows  that  in  forming  our  general  views  of  man  and  his 
destiny  we  must  limit  our  expectations  of  individual  per- 
fection, and  seek  for  compensation  in  the  advancement 
of  the  kind.  AVe  must,  in  the  main,  look  for  the  pecul- 
iar virtues  of  the  religious  pastor  elsewhere  than  in  the 
camp  or  at  the  bar,  though,  when  the  virtues  of  the  re- 


ox   THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  107 

ligious  blend  with  those  of  the  busy  and  stirring  life,  we 
feel  that  the  highest  aspiration  of  nature  is  fulfilled.  It 
may  be  that  advancing  civilization  will  soften  down  in- 
equalities in  the  moral  condition  of  men,  and  diminish 
the  impediments  to  self-improvement  which  they  pre- 
sent; but  we  can  scarcely  expect  that  it  will  efface  them, 
any  more  than  it  will  efface  the  moral  differences  attend- 
ant upon  difference  of  sex. 

In  the  passionate  desire  to  reach  individual  perfection, 
and  in  the  conviction  that  the  claims  of  society  were  op- 
posed to  that  desire,  men  have  fled  from  society  and  em- 
braced the  monastic  life.  The  contemplative  and  ascetic 
type  of  character  alone  seemed  clear  of  all  those  peculiar 
flaws  and  deformities  to  which  each  of  the  worldly  types 
is  liable.  The  experiment  has  been  tried  on  a  large 
scale,  and  under  various  conditions ;  by  the  Buddhist  as- 
cetics ;  in  a  higher  form  by  the  Christian  monks  of  the 
Eastern  Church ;  and  in  a  higher  still  by  those  of  the 
West.  In  each  case  the  result  has  been  decisive.  The 
monks  of  the  "West  long  kept  avenging  nature  at  bay  by 
uniting  action  of  various  kinds  wdth  asceticism  and  con- 
templation, but  among  them,  too,  corruption  at  last  set 
in,  and  proved  that  this  hypothesis  of  life  and  character 
was  not  the  true  one,  and  that  humanity  must  relinquish 
the  uniform  and  perfect  type  which  formed  the  dream  of 
a  Benedict  or  a  Francis,  and  descend  again  to  variety 
and  imperfection. 

Variety  and  imperfection  are  things,  the  first  of  which 
seems  necessarily  to  involve  the  second.  Yet  the  taste 
which  prefers  variety  to  sameness,  even  in  the  moral 
world,  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  our  nature,  that  if  taste 


108  ON  THE  STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

means  any  thing,  this  taste  would  seem  to  have  its  source 
and  its  justification  in  the  reality  of  things. 

Separate,  too,  entirely  the  destinies  of  man  from  those 
of  his  fellow,  and  you  will  encounter  some  perplexing 
questions,  not  to  be  avoided,  touching  the  strong  cases  of 
natural  depravity  which  occur  among  the  most  unfor- 
tunate of  our  kind.  Actual  idiocy  may  be  regarded  as 
destroying  humanity  altogether.  But  are  there  not  nat- 
ural depravities,  moral  and  intellectual,  short  of  idiocy, 
which  preclude  the  attainment  of  any  high  standard  of 
character,  and  forbid  us  to  make  the  moral  destiny  of 
these  beings  too  dependent  on  the  individual  life  ? 

Our  common  notions,  which  make  the  moral  life  so 
strictly  individual,  seem  to  depend  a  good  deal  on  the  be- 
lief that  each  man  is  morally  not  only  a  law,  but  an  inde- 
pendent and  perfect  law  to  himself.  But  is  this  so  ?  Is 
the  voice  of  individual  conscience  independent  and  infal- 
lible? Do  we  not,  in  doubtful  cases,  rectify  it  by  con- 
sulting a  friend,  who  represents  to  us  the  general  con- 
science of  mankind?  Of  what  is  it  that  conscience 
speaks?  Is  it  of  abstract  right  and  wrong?  Are  not 
these  conscience  itself  under  another  name?  Moralists, 
therefore,  support  conscience,  and  give  it  meaning  by 
identifying  it  with  universal  expediency,  with  the  fitness 
of  things,  with  the  supreme  will  of  the  Creator.  Uni- 
versal expediency  and  the  fitness  of  things  are  ultimate 
and  distant  references,  if  they  arc  not  altogether  beyond 
the  range  of  our  vision.  The  will  of  God  as  an  object 
distinct  from  morality  seems  altogether  to  defy  our  pow- 
er of  conception.  Would  conscience  retain  its  authority 
if  it  were  not  more  immediately  supported  by  human 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY,  109 

sympathy,  love,  and  reverence,  throngli  which,  the  Maker 
of  us  all  speaks  to  each  of  us,  and  which  are  bestowed  in 
virtue  of  our  conformity  to  a  type  of  moral  character 
preserved  by  the  opinion  and  affection  of  the  race  ?  The 
sympathy,  love,  and  reverence  of  our  kind  are,  at  all 
events,  objects  of  a  real  desire  and  incitements  to  virtu- 
ous action,  which  the  philosophic  definitions  of  morality, 
however  high-sounding,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be. 

Common  language  divides  virtues  and  viceg  into  the 
social  and  the  self-regarding.  But  are  there  any  purely 
self- regarding  virtues  or  vices  ?  Does  not  temperance  fit 
us  and  intemperance  unfit  us  to  perform  the  duties  of  life 
toward  our  kind?  Is  it  easy  to  preach  temperance  and 
denounce  intemperance  very  powerfully  except  by  refer- 
ence to  the  claims  and  opinion  of  society?  "Would  a 
man  be  very  clearly  bound  to  give  up  an  enjoyment 
which  injures  himself  alone  ?  It  is  sometimes  said  of  a 
good-natured  spendthrift  and  voluptuary  that  he  was 
only  his  own  enemy.  "We  have  not  to  look  far  to  sec 
that  he  must  have  been  the  enemy  of  all  about  him  and 
of  society.  But  if  the  statement  were  true  it  would'  al- 
most disarm  the  censure  of  mankind. 

The  question  whether  virtue  be  enlightened  and  deep 
self-love,  which  has  been  rather  glossed  than  solved,  may 
perhaps  be  partly  solved  by  experiment.  You  preach 
against  incontinence,  for  instance,  on  grounds  of  personal 
purity,  and  your  preaching  proves  not  very  effective. 
Try  a  different  course.  Preach  against  incontinence  on 
the  ground  of  pity  for  its  victims,  and  see  whether  that 
motive  will  be  more  availinsr. 

That  there  is  a  complete  and  independent  moral  code 


110  ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

innate  in  each  of  us,  is  an  opinion  -which  it  is  difficult  to 
liold  when  we  sec  how  much  the  special  precepts  of  the 
iiioral  law  have  been  altered  by  social  opinion  for  the 
best  members  of  society  in  the  course  of  history.  Piracy, 
wars  of  conquest,  dueling,  for  example,  were  once  ap- 
proved by  the  moral  code;  they  are  now  condemned  by 
the  improved  code  which  has  sprung  from  the  enlarged 
moral  views  and  more  enlightened  conscience  of  man- 
kind. I  say  that  the  special  precepts  of  the  moral  code 
are  altered;  I  do  not  say  that  the  essence  of  morality 
changes.  The  essence  of  morality  does  not  change.  Its 
immutability  is  the  bond  between  the  hearts  of  Homer's 
time  and  ours.  The  past  is  not  without  its  image  in  the 
present.  Suppose  a  young  London  thief,  such  as  Defoe 
has  painted,  kind-hearted,  true  to  his  comrades  in  danger 
and  distress,  making  a  free  and  generous  use  of  his  plun- 
der, and  in  his  depredations  having  mercy  on  the  poor. 
It  is  plain  that  the  boy  would  be  much  better  if  he  did 
not  steal,  as  he  will  himself  see,  directly  he  is  taught  what 
is  right.  It  is  plain,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  is  not  a 
bad  boy ;  that  (to  apply  the  most  practical  test)  }■  ou  can 
neither  hate  nor  despise  him  ;  that,  on  the  whole,  he  docs 
more  good  than  evil  in  the  world.  Tlie  evil  he  docs 
even  to  property  is  slight,  compared  with  that  which  is 
done  by  rich  idlers  and  voluptuaries,  since  while  ho 
steals  a  little  they  taint  it  all.  Not  that  the  moral  law 
docs  not  include  property  as  an  essential  precept,  but 
that  the  essence  of  morality  lies  deeper  than  the  special 
precepts  of  the  moral  law. 

Wliere  the  essence  of  morality  lies,  history  must  wait 
to  be  taught  by  ethical  science.     Till  she  is  taught,  it  is 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  Ill 

impossible  that  she  can  form  her  pliilosophy  on  a  sound 
basis ;  and,  therefore,  those  who  are  devoted  to  historical 
studies  may  be  excused  for  impatiently  desiring  a  more 
rational  inquiry  into  this,  the  central  secret  of  the  world. 
It  is  not  by  verbal  definitions,  however  philosophic  in  ap- 
pearance, that  we  shall  ascertain  what  morality  really  is. 
"We  must  proceed  by  a  humbler  method.  Does  morality 
lie  in  action  or  in  character  ?  Do  not  actions,  similar  in 
themselves  and  equally  voluntary,  change  their  moral  hue 
as  they  spring  from  one  character  or  another?  Are  not 
crimes  committed  from  habit  at  once  the  least  voluntary 
and  the  most  culpable  ?  and  is  not  the  paramount  import- 
ance of  character,  of  which  habitual  action  is  the  test,  the 
account  of  this  paradox?  Is  not  the  same  action,  if  done 
by  a  character  tending  upward,  regarded  as  comparative- 
ly good?  if  by  a  character  tending  downward,  as  com- 
paratively evil  ?  Is  it  not,  in  short,  as  indications  of  char- 
acter, and  on  that  account  only,  that  actions  excite  our 
moral  emotions,  as  distinct  from  our  mere  sense  of  social 
interest  ?  And  if  this  be  so,  is  it  not  rather  in  character 
than  in  action  that  morality  lies  ?  If  it  is,  we  must  ana- 
lyze the  phenomena  of  character  by  some  rational  meth- 
od. There  are  two  sets  of  qualities,  one  of  which  excites 
our  reverence,  the  other  our  love;  and  which  tend  to 
fusion  in  the  more  perfect  characters,  but  as  a  character 
never  reaches  perfection,  arc  never  completely  fused. 
"What  is  the  common  ingredient  of  these  two  sets  of 
qualities?  What  is  the  common  element  in  the  hero  and 
the  saint?  What  connects  grandeur  of  character  with 
grace?  What,  in  short,  are  our  several  moral  tastes,  and 
what  and  how  related  are  the  diflerent  points  of  character 


112  ON  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

that  attract  and  repel  them  ?  In  the  case  of  doubtful 
characters,  such  as  that  of  a  "Wallenstein,  or  that  of  an 
Othello,  what  is  it  that  constitutes  the  doubt?  what  is  it 
that  turns  the  scale  ?  Which  of  the  vices  are  more,  which 
less,  destructive  of  beauty  of  character?  and  what  is  it 
that  determines  the  difference  of  their  effects  ?  If  delib- 
erate cruelty,  for  instance,  is  the  worst,  the  most  unpar- 
donable of  vices,  may  it  not  point  to  the  prime  source  of 
moral  excellence  in  the  opposite  pole  ?  These  are  ques- 
tions which  seem  at  least  to  present  rational  starting- 
points  for  inquiry,  and  to  be  capable  of  being  handled 
by  a  rational  method ;  and  they  must  be  rationally  han- 
dled before  we  can  construct  a  real  philosophy  of  his- 
tory— perhaps  it  may  be  added,  before  moral  philosophy 
itself  can  become  fruitful,  and  pass  from  airy  definition 
to  the  giving  of  real  precepts  for  the  treatment  of  our 
moral  infirmities  and  the  attainment  of  moral  health. 
The  school  which  regards  history  as  the  evolution  of  a 
physical  organization  under  a  physical  law  is  ready  with 
a  multiplicity  of  hypotheses,  furnished  by  the  analogy 
of  physical  science.  The  school  which  regards  history 
51s  the  manifestation  and  improvement  of  human  charac- 
ter through  free  action  is  in  suspense  for  want  of  some 
sounder  and  more  comprehensive  account  of  human  char- 
acter than  has  yet  been  supplied. 

On  the  other  hand,  history,  as  we  have  said,  may  lend 
light  to  the  moral  philosopher.  lie  can  not  fail  to  be 
assisted  and  guided  by  contemplating  not  individual  hu- 
manity onl}^  but  the  whole  estate  of  man.  Some  things 
become  palpable  on  the  large  scale,  which,  in  examining 
the  single  instance,  do  not  come  into  view  or  may  be 


ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  113 

overlooked.  Ilistory  forces  on  our  notice,  and  compels 
us  to  take  reasonably  into  account,  the  weakness,  the  nec- 
essary imperfections,  the  various  and  unequal  lot,  the  con- 
straining circumstances,  the  short,  precarious  life  of  man. 
In  history,  too,  besides  the  tragic  element  of  human  life, 
there  plainly  appears  another  element,  which  may  not  be 
without  its  significance.  Whenever  an  historian  gives 
us  a  touch  of  genuine  humor,  we  recognize  in  it  a  touch 
of  truth.  Ilumor,  the  appreciation  of  what  is  comic  in 
man  and  his  actions,  is  a  part  of  our  moral  nature ;  it  is 
founded  on  a  kind  of  moral  justice :  it  discriminates  crime 
from  weakness ;  it  tempers  the  horror  which  the  offenses 
of  a  Louis  XIV.  excite,  with  a  smile,  which  denotes  the 
allowance  due  to  a  man  taught  by  his  false  position  and 
by  his  sycophants  to  play  the  god.  In  its  application  to 
the  whole  lot  of  man,  and  to  the  lot  of  each  man,  it  may 
perhaps  be  thought  to  suggest  that  the  drama  is  not  pure 
tragedy,  and  that  all  is  not  quite  so  terrible  or  so  serious 
as  it  seems. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  all  this  points,  not  by  any 
means  to  a  lower  morality,  but  to  a  somewhat  lower  esti- 
mate of  the  moral  powers  of  individual  man  ;  to  an  at- 
tainable ideal,  and  to  the  deliberate  love  of  human  char- 
acters in  spite  of  great  imperfections,  if  on  the  whole  they 
have  tended  upward,  and  done,  in  their  measure,  their 
duty  to  their  kind.  And  is  not  man  more  likely  to  strug- 
gle for  that  which  is  within  than  for  that  whicb  is  beyond 
his  reach  ?  If  you  would  have  us  mount  the  steep  ascent, 
is  it  not  better  to  show  us  the  first  step  of  the  stairs  than 
that  which  is  nearest  to  the  skies?  If  all  the  rhetoric  of 
the  pulpit  were  to  be  taken  as  literally  true,  would  not 


114  ON  THE   STUDY  OF  HISTORY. 

society  be  plunged  into  recklessness,  or  dissolved  in  ago- 
nies of  despair?  A  human  morality  saves  muck  which 
an  impracticable  morality  would  throw  away ;  it  readily 
accepts  the  tribute  of  moral  poverty,  the  fragment  of  a 
life,  the  plain  prosaic  duty  of  minds  incapable  from  their 
nature  or  circumstances  of  conceiving  a  high  poetic  ideal. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  its  stricter  side.  It  knows  noth- 
ing of  the  merits  of  mere  innocence.  It  requires  active 
service  to  be  rendered  to  society.  It  holds  out  no  salva- 
tion by  wearing  of  amulets  or  telling  of  beads.  Eegard- 
ing  man  as  essentially  a  social  being,  it  bears  hard  on  in- 
dolent wealth,  however  regular  and  pious ;  on  sinecurism 
in  every  sense;  on  all  who  are  content  to  live  by  the 
sweat  of  another  man's  brow.  It  teaches  that  to  be  un- 
derpaid is  better  than  to  be  overpaid  ;  and  that  covetous- 
ness  and  grasping,  though  they  may  not  violate  the  law, 
are  a  robber}',  at  once  immoral  and  fatuous,  of  the  com- 
mon store. 

There  is  little  fear,  let  us  say  once  more,  lest  any  man, 
not  a  victim  to  the  mad  mysticism  into  which  material- 
ism is  apt  to  be  hurried  by  the  Nemesis  of  reason,  should 
imagine  himself  divested  of  his  distinct  personality,  or  of 
his  distinct  personal  responsibility,  and  merged  in  the  ag- 
gregate of  humanity,  or  in  the  universe  of  which  human- 
ity is  a  part.  It  is  difficult  to  express  such  reveries  in 
the  language  of  sane  men.  But  that  tlie  liuman  race  is, 
in  a  real  sense,  one;  that  its  efforts  are  common,  and 
tend  in  some  measure  to  a  joint  result;  that  its  several 
members  may  stand  in  the  eye  of  their  Maker  not  only 
as  individual  agents,  but  as  contributors  to  this  joint  re- 
sult, is  a  doctrine  which  our  reason,  perhaps,  finds  some- 


ox  THE   STUDY   OF   HISTORY.  115 

thing  to  support,  and  which  our  hearts  readily  accept. 
It  unites  us  not  only  in  sympathy,  but  in  real  interest 
with  the  generations  that  are  to  come  after  us,  as  well  as 
with  those  that  have  gone  before  us ;  it  makes  each  gen- 
eration, each  man,  a  partaker  in  the  wealth  of  all ;  it  en- 
courages us  to  sow  a  harvest  which  we  shall  reap,  not 
with  our  hands,  indeed,  but  by  the  hands  of  those  that 
come  after  us ;  it  at  once  represses  selfish  ambition,  and 
stimulates  the  desire  of  earning  the  gratitude  of  our  kind ; 
it  strengthens  all  social,  and  regulates  all  personal  de- 
sires ;  it  limits,  and,  by  limiting,  sustains  effort,  and  calms 
the  passionate  craving  to  grasp  political  perfection  or 
final  truth;  it  fills  up  the  fragment,  gives  fruitfulness  to 
effort  apparently  wasted,  and  covers  present  failure  with 
ultimate  success;  it  turns  the  deaths  of  states,  as  of  men, 
into  incidents  in  one  vast  life,  and  quenches  the  melan- 
choly which  flows  from  the  ruins  of  the  past — that  past 
into  which  we  too  are  sinking,  just  when  great  things 
seem  about  to  come. 


ON  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  DOC- 
TRINE OF  HISTORICAL  PROGRESS. 


In  previous  lectures  on  the  "  Study  of  Ilistorj'"  I  fully 
accepted  the  doctrine  of  Historical  Progress.  It  is  obvi- 
ous that  the  knowledge  and  wealth  of  our  race  increase 
and  accumulate  from  age  to  age,  and  that  their  increase 
and  accumulation  react  powerfully  on  the  moral  state  of 
man.  It  is  less  obvious,  but  it  seems  not  less  certain, 
that  our  views  of  morality  itself  expand,  and  that  our 
moral  code  is  improved,  as,  by  the  extension  of  human 
intercourse,  our  moral  relations  are  multiplied,  and  as,  by 
the  advancement  of  science  and  jurisprudence,  they  be- 
come better  understood.  Nor  can  it  easily  be  denied 
that  this  progress  extends  even  to  religion.  In  learning 
more  of  man  we  learn  more  of  Him  in  whose  image  man 
was  made ;  in  learning  more  of  the  creation  we  learn 
more  of  the  Creator ;  and  every  thing  which  in  the 
course  of  civilization  tends  to  elevate,  deepen,  and  refine 
the  character  generally,  tends  to  elevate,  deepen,  and  re- 
fine it  in  its  religious  aspect. 

But  then  it  is  alleged,  and  even  triumphantly  proclaim- 
ed, that  tremendous  consequences  follow  from  this  doc- 
trine.   If  we  accept  historical  progress,  it  is  said,  we  must 


lis  ON   SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

give  up  Christianity.  Christianity,  wc  arc  told,  like  oth- 
er phases  of  the  great  onward  movement  of  humanity, 
has  had  its  place,  and  that  a  great  place,  in  history.  In 
its  allotted  epoch  it  was  progressive  in  the  highest  de- 
gree, and  immense  veneration  and  gratitude  are  due  to  it 
on  that  account ;  but,  like  other  phases  of  the  same  move- 
ment, it  had  its  appointed  term.  That  term  it  has  already 
exceeded.  It  has  already  become  stationary,  and  even 
retrograde ;  it  has  begun,  instead  of  being  the  beneficent 
instrument,  to  be  the  arch-enemy  of  human  progress.  It 
cumbers  the  earth  ;  and  the  object  of  all  honest,  scientific, 
free-thinking  men,  who  are  lovers  of  their  kind,  should 
be  to  quicken  the  death-pangs  into  which  it  has  mani- 
festly fallen,  and  remove  once  for  all  this  obstruction  to 
the  onward  movement  of  the  race.  Confusion  and  dis- 
tress will  probably  attend  the  final  abandonment  of  "  the 
popular  religion ;"  but  it  is  better  at  once  to  encounter 
them,  than  to  keep  up  any  longer  an  imposture  which  is 
disorganizing  and  demoralizing  to  society,  as  well  as  de- 
grading to  the  mind  of  man.  "  Let  us  at  once,  by  a  cour- 
ageous effort,  say  farewell  to  our  old  faith,  and,  by  a  still 
more  courageous  effort,  find  ourselves  a  new  one  I"  A 
gallant  resolution,  and  one  which  proves  those  who  have 
taken  it  to  be  practical  believers  in  free-will,  and  redeems 
them  from  the  reproach  of  admitting  the  logical  conse- 
quences of  their  own  doctrines  touching  the  necessary 
l)rogress  of  humanity  by  way  of  development  and  under 
the  influence  of  invariable  laws.  If  history  grows  like  a 
vegetable,  or  like  the  body  of  an  animal,  no  eflbrt  of 
courage  can  be  needed,  or  avail  to  direct  its  growth.  Wc 
have  only  to  let  well  or  ill  alone. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         119 

The  notion  that  Christianity  is  at  this  moment  mani- 
festly in  an  expiring  state,  or,  to  use  the  favorite  lan- 
guage of  the  sect,  that  "  the  popular  religion  has  entered 
on  its  last  phase,"  is  perhaps  partly  produced  by  the  re- 
form, or  attempted  reform,  of  Christian  doctrine  which  is 
at  present  going  on.  This  movement  is  supposed  to  be 
an  exact  parallel  to  the  attempt  made  by  the  later  Pla- 
tonists  to  rationalize  the  popular  mythology  of  Greece, 
and  equally  ominous  of  approaching  dissolution  to  the 
superstition  with  which  its  more  philosophic  adherents 
found  it  necessary  thus  desperately  to  deal.  The  analo- 
gy would  be  more  just  if  the  later  Platonists,  instead  of 
endeavoring  to  bring  a  sensual  superstition  to  the  level 
of  the  age  by  violently  importing  into  it  a  spiritual  phi- 
losophy, had  endeavored  to  restore  it  to  its  primitive  and 
most  sensual  simplicity.  Though  even  in  that  case  it 
would  not  be  certain,  without  farther  proof,  that  because 
the  attempt  to  reform  Polytheism  had  failed,  Christianity 
must  be  incapable  of  reform.  Historical  analogy,  as  an 
interpreter  of  present  events,  has  its  uses,  and  it  has  also 
its  limits.  Christianity  supposes  that  with  its  Founder 
something  new  came  into  the  world.  The  King  of  Siam 
may,  after  all,  be  about,  in  contradiction  to  the  whole  of 
his  experience,  to  see  the  water  freeze. 

If,  however,  they  to  whom  I  allude  have  rightly  read 
the  present  by  the  light  of  the  past ;  if,  as  they  say,  a 
sound  and  free  philosophy  of  history  distinctly  points  to 
the  approaching  departure  of  Christianity  from  the  world, 
a  terrible  crisis  has  indeed  arrived,  and  one  which  might 
well  be  expected  to  strike  their  rhetorical  exultation 
dumb.     They  admit,  I  believe,  that  religion,  or  whatever 


120  ox  SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

stands  in  the  place  of  it,  is  the  very  core,  centre,  and  vital 
support  of  our  social  and  political  organization ;  so  that 
without  a  religion  the  civil  tie  would  be  loosened,  person- 
al would  completely  prevail  over  public  motives,  selfish 
ambition  and  cupidity  would  break  loose  in  all  directions, 
and  society  and  the  body  politic  would  be  in  danger  of 
dissolution.  They  cry  aloud,  as  I  have  said,  that  Chris- 
tianity being  exploded,  a  new  religion  must  be  produced 
in  order  to  save  humanity  from  ruin  and  despair.  Now 
to  produce  a  new  religion  off-hand,  and  that  at  a  moment 
of  the  most  appalling  peril,  and  consequently  of  the  great- 
est mental  agony  and  distraction,  is  an  achievement  which 
even  the  most  extreme  believers  in  free-will  and  self-ex- 
ertion would  scarcely  think  possible  to  man.  I  am  not 
aware  that  go  much  as  the  rudiment  of  a  new  religion  has 
yet  been  actually  produced,  unless  it  be  the  Humanitari- 
an religion  of  M.  Comte,  which  is  merely  a  mad  travestie 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  from  which  even  the 
disciples  of  the  Comtist  philosophy,  if  they  have  any  sense 
of  the  grotesque  remaining,  turn  away  in  despair.  Thus 
the  law  of  human  development,  instead  of  being,  like  the 
laws  discovered  by  science,  regular  and  beneficent,  the 
just  object  of  our  confidence  as  well  as  of  our  admiration, 
has  failed  abruptly,  and  brought  humanity  to  the  brink 
of  Au  abyss. 

It  is  my  strong  conviction  that  history  has  arrived  at 
no  such  crisis;  that  the  indications  of  historical  philos- 
ophy have  been  misunderstood,  and  that  they  do  not 
point  to  the  impending  fall,  but  rather  to  the  approach- 
ing regeneration  of  Christendom.  I  do  not  think  that 
we  should  refuse  to  consider,  in  this  lecture-room,  a  ques- 


THE   DOCTRmE  OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         121 

tion  which  lies  at  the  very  root  of  the  philosophy  of 
history,  merely  because  it  happens  also  to  be  of  the 
liighest  practical  importance.  I  propose,  therefore,  to 
add  a  few  remarks  on  this  point,  by  way  of  supplement 
tp  the  two  general  lectures  on  the  "Study  of  History," 
in  which  the  Doctrine  of  Historical  Progress  has  been 
maintained. 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  struck  by  the  fact  that  sus- 
tained historical  progress  has  not  been  universal,  as  those 
against  whom  I  am  arguing  always  assume,  but  has  been 
confined  to  Christian  nations.  For  a  short  time  the  Mo- 
hammedan nations  seemed  to  advance,  not  merely  in 
conquering  energy,  but  in  civilization.  They  have  even 
been  set  up  as  the  moral  rivals  of  Christendom  by  those 
who  are  anxious  that  Christendom  should  not  appear  to 
be  without  a  rival.  But  their  progress  was  greatest  where 
they  were  most  immediately  in  contact  with  Christianity, 
and  it  has  long  since  ended  in  utter  corruption  and  irrev- 
ocable decay.  "Where  is  the  brilliant  monarchy  of  Ha- 
roun  Alraschid  ?  How  ephemeral  was  it  compared  even 
with  that  old  Byzantine  Empire  into  whose  frame  Chris- 
tianity had  infused  a  new  life  under  the  very  ribs  of 
death;  a  life  which  even  the  fatal  bequest  of  Eoman  des- 
potism, extending  itself  to  the  Church  as  well  as  to  the 
State,  could  scarcely  quench,  and  which,  through  ages  of 
Mohammedan  oppression,  has  smouldered  on  beneath  the 
ashes,  to  burst  out  again  in  reviving  Greece.  Even  in 
the  Moorish  communities  of  Spain,  the  flower  as  they 
were  of  Mohammedan  civilization,  internal  corruption 
bad  prepared  the  way  for  the  conquering  arms  of  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella.     Mohammedanism,  however,  whatcv- 

F 


122  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES   OF 

er  the  degree  of  progressive  energy  displayed  by  it  may 
have  been,  was  not  a  separate  and  independent  religion, 
but  a  debased  offspring  of  Judaism  and  Christianity. 
From  the  intercourse  of  its  founder  with  Jews  and 
Christians  it  derived  the  imposing  monotheism  which 
has  been  its  strength  both  as  a  conquering  power  and  as 
a  system  of  civilization ;  while  the  want  of  a  type  of 
character,  such  as  Christianity  possesses,  has  been  in  ev- 
ery sense  its  fatal  weakness.  Turning  to  the  remoter 
East,  we  iind  that  its  history  has  not  been  a  history  of 
progress,  but  of  the  successive  descents  of  conquering 
races  from  the  more  bracing  climate  of  the  North,  subju- 
gating the  languid  inhabitants  of  the  plains,  and  found- 
ing a  succession  of  empires,  sometimes  mighty  and  gor- 
geous, but  always  barren  of  nobler  fruits,  which,  when 
the  physical  energy  of  the  conquering  race  was  spent  in 
its  turn,  at  once  fell  into  decay.  The  semblance  of  prog- 
ress, in  short,  has  been  but  a  semblance,  due  merely  to 
fresh  infusions  of  animal  vigor,  not  to  any  sustaining 
principle  of  moral  life.  China  advanced  at  an  early  pe- 
riod to  a  certain  point  of  material  civilization  ;  but,  hav- 
ing reached  that  point,  she  became  a  by-word  of  immo- 
bility, as  Egypt,  the  ancient  China,  was  in  a  former  day. 
This  immemorial  stagnation  seems  now  about  to  end  in 
total  dissolution,  unless  Christian  nations  should  infuse  a 
regenerating  influence  from  without.  The  civilization 
of  Mexico  is  deplored  by  certain  philosophers,  who  seem 
to  think  that,  had  its  career  not  been  cut  short  by  Span- 
ish conquest,  it  might  have  attained  a  great  height,  and 
confirmed  their  views  of  history.  But  what  reason  is 
there  to  tliink  that  Mexico  would  ever  have  advanced 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   niSTOEICAL   PROGRESS.         123 

beyond  great  buildings  erected  by  slave  labor,  human 
sacrifices,  and  abominable  vices  ?  Again,  we  are  told 
that  the  Christian  view  of  history  must  be  narrow  and 
false,  because  it  does  not  include  in  its  theory  of  human 
progress  the  great  negro  and  fetichist  populations  of  Af- 
rica. But  we  ought  to  be  informed  what  part  the  negro 
and  fetichist  populations  of  Africa  have  really  played  in 
the  progress  of  humanity,  or  how  the  invariable  law  of 
spontaneous  development  through  a  certain  series  of  in- 
tellectual and  social  conditions  which  we  are  told  gov- 
erns the  history  of  all  nations,  has  been  verified  in  their 
case.  The  progress  of  ancient  Greece  and  Eome  was 
real  and  high  while  it  lasted,  and  Christianity  has  re- 
ceived its  fruits  into  herself  Its  moral  sources  deserve 
to  be  more  accurately  explored  than  they  have  yet  been ; 
but  in  both  cases  it  came  to  an  end  at  the  moment  of  its 
apparent  culmination  from  internal  causes  and  without 
hope  of  renewal.  In  both  cases  it  sank  under  an  empire, 
the  Macedonian  in  one  case,  that  of  the  Ca?sars  in  the 
other,  which,  whatever  it  may  have  been  in  its  effects  on 
humanity  at  large,  was  certainly  the  grave  of  republican 
virtue. 

It  is  confidently  said  that  the  historical  progress  of  the 
most  advanced  nations  of  Europe  during  recent  times 
has  been  beyond  the  pale  of  Christendom,  and  that  it 
forms  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  exhaustion  and  decline 
of  Christianity.  The  intellect  of  Protestant  Germany, 
which  has  played  so  momentous  a  part  in  the  historical 
progress  of  the  last  century,  is  triumphantly  cited  as  a 
palpable  instance  of  this  fact.  There  is  much  which  to 
the  eye  of  the  theologian,  looking  to  religious  professions, 


124  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

is  witliout  the  pale  of  Christendom,  but  which  to  the  his- 
torical eye,  looking  to  moral  connections,  is  still  within 
it.  That  increase  of  infidelity,  which  is  spoken  of  with 
so  much  alarm  on  one  side,  and  so  much  exultation  on 
the  other,  theologically  viewed,  is  no  doubt  great,  espe- 
cially if  we  look  not  to  mere  numbers,  but  to  intellectual 
cultivation  and  influence ;  but,  viewed  morally,  it  is,  con- 
sidering the  distractions  of  Christendom,  surprisingly 
small.  Great  masses  of  intelligence  and  eminent  leaders 
of  thought  in  all  departments  have  been  nominally  and 
outwardly  estranged  from  Christendom  by  the  divisions 
of  the  churches;  by  the  rending  of  the  truth  and  of  the 
means  of  religious  influence  between  them ;  by  the  bar- 
ren and  impotent  dogmatism  into  which,  through  their 
rivalries  and  controversies,  they  are  perpetually  driving 
each  other;  by  the  sinister  alliances  of  some  of  them  with 
political  obstructiveness  and  injustice;  by  the  apparent 
conflict  which  their  pretensions  create  between  the  claims 
of  reason  and  those  of  religious  faith ;  by  the  false  ground 
which  some  of  them  have  taken  in  regard  to  the  discov- 
eries of  science  and  historical  philoso])hy ;  and  most  of 
all,  perhaps,  by  the  contradiction  which  their  mutual  de- 
nunciations produce  between  the  palpable  focts  of  our 
common  morality  and  the  supposed  judgments  of  relig- 
ion. But  it  will  be  found,  on  closer  inspection,  that  these 
apparent  seceders  from  Christendom  remain  Christians  in 
their  whole  view  of  the  world,  of  God,  of  the  human 
character  and  destinies ;  speak  a  language  and  appeal  to 
principles  and  sympathies  essentially  Christian;  draw 
their  moral  life  from  the  Christendom  which  surrounds 
them;  receive  their  wives  at  Christian  altars,  and  bring 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.  125 

up  tlieir  children  in  the  Christian  faith.  Many  a  great 
writer  who  is  brought  forward  as  a  proof  that  the  intel- 
lect of  the  age  is  Christian  no  longer,  will  be  found,  on 
examination,  to  have  nothing  in  his  writings  which  is 
not  derived  from  a  Christian  source.  Schleiermacher  ap- 
pears to  be  hailed  as  one  of  those  who,  by  their  criticisms, 
have  pronounced  the  doom  of  the  "  popular  religion :" 
Schleiermacher  received  the  Eucharist  on  his  death-bed, 
and  died  declaring  that  he  had  adhered  to  the  living 
spirit  of  Christianity  rather  than  to  the  dead  letter.  lie 
may  have  been  illogical,  but  he  can  not  be  said,  historic- 
ally, not  to  have  been  a  Christian. 

In  France,  perhaps,  alone,  owing  to  peculiar  disasters, 
not  the  least  of  which  was  the  hypocritical  re-establish- 
ment of  Eoman  Catholicism  by  the  statecraft  of  Napo- 
leon, a  really  great  estrangement  of  the  people  from 
Christianity  has  taken  place.  And  what  are  the  conse- 
quences of  the  estrangement  to  the  progress  of  this  great 
nation,  which  not  a  century  ago  was  intellectually  at  the 
head  of  Europe,  which  seemed  by  her  efforts  to  have 
opened  a  new  era  of  social  justice  for  mankind,  and 
which  the  atheistical  school  desire  now,  in  virtue  of  her 
partial  atheism,  to  erect  into  the  president  and  arbitress 
of  the  civilized  world?  The  consequences  are  a  form  of 
government,  not  created  by  a  supreme  effort  of  modern 
intellect,  but  borrowed  from  that  of  declining  Eome, 
which,  bereft  of  Christian  hope,  immolates  the  future  to 
the  present ;  a  despairing  abandonment  of  personal  lib- 
erty and  freedom  of  opinion ;  a  popular  literature  of 
heathen  depravity ;  and  a  loss  of  moral  objects  of  inter- 
est, while  military  glor}^  and  material  aggrandizement 


126  ON   SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES   OF 

are  worshiped  in  their  place.     If  this  state  of  things  is 
prpgressive,  what  is  retrograde  ? 

y^  There  are  three  great  elements  of  human  progress,  the 
/  moral,  the  intellectual,  and  the  productive,  or  virtue, 
^-^^nowledge,  and  industry.  But  these  three  elements, 
though  distinct,  are  not  separate,  but  closely  connected 
with  each  other.  There  is  a  moral  element  in  every 
good  production  of  industry ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  works  of  intellect  and  the  productions  of  industry 
exercise  a  vast  influence  on  our  moral  condition.  It 
was  contended  in  a  former  lecture  that  the  moral  clement 
of  progress  was  the  cardinal  element  of  the  three ;  the 
direction  of  the  intellect  to  good  objects,  which  leads  to 
the  attainment  of  useful  knowledge,  and  the  self-exertion 
and  self-denial  which  constitute  industry,  being  determ- 
ined by  moralit}^,  without  which  the  intellectual  and  pro- 
ductive powers  of  man  would  be  aimless  and  wandering 
forces,  working  at  random  good  and  evil.  It  was  also 
contended  that  the  formation  of  good  moral  character, 
the  only  object  which  comprehends  all  the  rest,  and 
which  all  human  actions,  discoveries,  and  productions 
promote  and  subserve,  was  the  final  end  of  all  human  ef- 
fort, the  ultimate  mark  and  goal  of  human  progress,  and 
the  true  key  to  history.  If  these  positions  are  sound,  the 
main  questions,  in  determining  the  ultimate  relation  be- 
tween Christianity  and  human  progress,  will  be,  whether 
the  Christian  morality  is  sound  and  universal,  and  wheth- 
er the  Christian  type  of  character  is  perfect  and  final.  It 
is  only  if  the  Christian  morality  is  not  sound  and  univer- 
sal that  it  can  be  discarded  or  transcended  by  the  moral 
progress  of  the  race.     It  is  only  if  the  type  of  character 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.  127 

consecrated  in  the  Gospels  is  not  perfect  and  final  that 
its  consecration  can  ever  interfere  with  the  aspirations  of 
humanity  advancing  toward  the  goal  of  purity  and  per- 
fection. These  are  the  main  questions;  we  shall  also 
have  to  consider  whether  Christianity  conflicts  with  or 
discourages  any  special  kind  of  human  progress,  intel- 
lectual or  industrial. 

What  is  the  root  and  essence  of  moral  character? 
What  is  it  that  connects  together  all  those  moral  habits 
which  we  call  the  virtues,  and  warrants  us  in  giving 
them  the  collective  name  of  virtue  ?  Courage,  chastity, 
and  generosity  are,  at  first  sight,  three  different  things : 
in  what  respect  is  it  that  they  are  one?  What  is  the 
common  element  of  moral  attraction  in  all  that  vast  va- 
riety of  character,  regular  or  irregular,  severe  or  tender,  to 
which,  in  history  and  life,  our  hearts  are  drawn?  Some 
one  principle  there  must  surely  be  which  traverses  all 
this  uniform  diversitj^,  some  one  principle  which  our 
hearts  would  recognize,  not  as  a  mere  intellectual  specu- 
lation, but  as  the  real  spring  of  moral  endeavor  in  them- 
selves. And  if  there  be  such  a  principle,  it  will,  on  our 
hypothesis,  be  the  key  at  once  to  the  life  of  individual 
man  and  to  the  history  of  the  race.  It  will  contain  in  it 
not  only  a  true  moral  philosophy,  but  a  true  philosophy 
of  history. 

Now,  whatever  mystery  may  shroud  the  ultimate  source 
of  our  moral  being,  thus  much  seems  tolerably  certain, 
that  the  seat  of  the  moral  principle  in  our  nature  is  indi- 
cated and  covered  by  the  quality  to  which,  according  to 
the  intensity  of  its  manifestation,  we  give  various  names, 
rano-incr  from  benevolence  to  self-sacrifice.     There  is,  I 


128  ON   SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

apprehend,  no  special  virtue  wliicli  is  not  capable  of  be- 
ing resolved  into  tbis.  To  take  those  which  appear  least 
obviously  identical  with  benevolence — courage,  temper- 
ance, and  chastity.  Courage,  when  it  is  a  virtue,  is  the 
sacrifice  of  our  personal  safety  to  the  interests  of  our  kind, 
which  rises  to  its  highest  pitch  in  the  case  of  martyrdom. 
Temperance  fits  us,  while  intemperance  unfits  us,  to  per- 
form our  duty  to  society,  and  spares,  while  intemperance 
wastes,  the  common  store.  Chastity  is,  in  like  manner,  a 
sacrifice  of  the  selfish  animal  passions  to  the  social  prin- 
ciple, since  the  indulgence  of  lust  both  involves  the  cor- 
ruption and  misery  of  its  victims,  and  destroys  in  the  man 
who  indulges  it  the  capacity  for  pure  affection.  We  need 
not  here  discuss  the  question  whether  there  is  any  virtue 
which  is  solely  and  purely  self-regarding.  If  there  is,  its 
good  effects  must  end  with  the  individual  life ;  it  can  not 
be  one  of  the  springs  of  human  progress. 

Benevolence  may  of  course  take  as  many  special  forms 
and  produce  as  great  a  variety  of  benevolent  characters 
as  there  are  social  and  unselfish  objects  in  the  world.  It 
may  be  the  advocacy  of  a  particular  cause  or  principle ; 
it  may  be  the  pursuit  of  a  particular  ideal :  both  the  cause 
or  principle  and  the  ideal  being  matters  of  common  in- 
terest, and  tending  to  the  common  good.  It  may  be  the 
devotion  to  science  or  art,  as  the  instruments  of  human 
improvement  and  happiness,  which  forms  the  moral  sido 
of  the  intellectual  life.  It  may  be  extended  in  its  scope 
to  the  whole  human  race,  and  labor  for  the  universal 
good  of  man ;  or  it  may  bo  limited  to  the  narrow  circle 
of  a  nation,  a  guild,  a  family,  through  whom,  however,  it 
does  indirectly  and  unconsciously  embrace  mankind.     It 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         129 

is  sure  to  be  affected,  and  almost  sure  to  be  somewhat 
distorted  in  its  special  character  by  the  position  of  each 
man  in  life,  and  to  show  itself  as  a  peculiar  self-devotion 
to  country  in  the  case  of  the  good  soldier,  and  as  a  pe- 
culiar self-devotion  to  the  interests  of  justice  in  the  case 
of  the  good  judge.  Hence  arise  a  multiplicity  of  deriva- 
tive and  secondary  virtues,  and  an  infinite  variety  of  char- 
acters, of  each  of  which  some  derivative  and  secondary 
virtue  is  the  peculiar  stamp.  But,  multiform  as  these 
virtues  and  characters  are,  it  will  be  found  that  they  are 
uniform  also ;  that,  upon  examination,  they  may  all  be 
reduced  to  benevolence  in  one  or  other  of  its  various  de- 
grees ;  and  that  on  this  principle  the  moral  philosopher 
and  the  educator,  if  they  would  attain  to  real  results,  must 
take  their  stand.  In  the  same  manner,  I  apprehend  that 
the  approbation  and  affection  which  benevolence  obtains 
for  us,  these,  and  not  any  thing  more  individual  or  more 
transcendental,  are  the  real  earthly  assurance  and  sujDport 
of  virtue,  the  earthly  object  of  virtuous  endeavors,  the 
supreme  happiness  of  our  earthly  life.  What  these  fore- 
shadow, and  how  they  foreshadow  it,  is  not  a  fit  subject 
of  inquiry  here ;  but  certainly  the  Gospel  holds  out  a  so- 
cial, not  an  individual  heaven. 

In  a  former  lecture  the  question  was  raised  whether 
morality  lies  in  action  or  in  character,  and  whether  our 
approbation  of  moral  actions  is  translated  from  action  to 
character,  or  from  character  to  action.  Some  reasons 
were  given  for  inclining  to  believe  that  it  is  in  character 
ratherj,han  in  action  that  morality  lies.  It  is  said,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  character  is  only  a  formed  disposition  to 
act  in  a  particular  way,  and  that  our  approbation  attaches 

1^^  2 


130  ox   SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

to  good  character  only  as  the  source,  actual  or  presump- 
tive, of  good  action.  I  reply,  that  character  is  not  only  a 
disposition  to  act,  it  is  a  disposition  to  feel  and  to  partici- 
pate in  certain  emotions — emotions  which  are  sometimes 
incapable  of  being  translated  into  action.  You  would  not 
say  that  a  man's  character  was  perfect  who  should  be  in- 
capable of  sympathizing  in  the  emotions  produced  by  the 
most  glorious  or  the  most  tender  visions  of  nature,  and 
yet  what  special  action  can  flow  from  such  sympathies 
as  these?  Does  the  presence  of  a  beloved  friend  give 
us  pleasure  merely  as  implying  a  likelihood  of  his  active 
beneficence  ?  And,  again,  what  presumption  of  active  be- 
neficence can  there  be  in  the  case  of  the  dead,  our  affec- 
tion for  whose  characters  often  survives  the  grave  ?  This 
passive  element  in  character,  generally  called  sensibility, 
seems  to  be  a  main  source  of  poetry  and  art,  which  play 
so  important  a  part  in  human  life  and  history.  Now  a 
character  formed  on  benevolence,  as  it  implies  not  only 
action,  but  affection  and  the  j^ower  of  sympathy,  docs  cm- 
brace  a  passive  as  well  as  an  active  clement,  or  rather  it 
presents  a  passive  as  well  as  an  active  phase,  and  in  this 
respect  again  it  seems  to  be  perfect,  universal,  and  final. 
A  character  formed  on  the  moral  basis  propounded  by 
Gibbon,  the  love  of  pleasure  and  the  love  of  action,  would 
fail,  among  other  things,  in  not  having  a  sympathetic  side. 
Kow  Christianity  rests  on  one  fundamental  moral 
principle  as  the  complete  basis  of  a  perfect  moral  char- 
acter, that  principle  being  The  love  of  our  Neighbor, 
another  name  for  I3ciicvolencc.  And  the  Type  of  Char- 
acter set  forth  in  the  Gospel  history  is  an  absolute  em- 
bodiment of  Love  both  in  the  way  of  action  and  affcc- 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         131 

tion,  crowned  by  the  highest  possible  exhibition  of  it  in 
an  act  of  the  most  transcendent  self-devotion  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  human  race.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  how  the  Christian  morality  can  ever  be 
brought  into  antagonism  with  the  moral  progress  of 
mankind,  or  how  the  Christian  type  of  character  can 
ever  be  left  behind  by  the  course  of  human  development, 
lose  the  allegiance  of  the  moral  world,  or  give  place  to  a 
newly  emerging  and  higher  ideal.  This  type,  it  would 
appear,  being  perfect,  will  be  final.  It  will  be  final,  not 
as  precluding  future  history,  but  as  comprehending  it. 
The  moral  efforts  of  all  ages  to  the  consummation  of  the 
world  will  be  efforts  to  realize  this  character,  and  to 
make  it  actually,  as  it  is  potentially,  universal.  While 
these  efforts  are  being  carried  on  under  all  the  various 
circumstances  of  life  and  society,  and  under  all  the  vari- 
ous moral  and  intellectual  conditions  attaching  to  partic- 
ular men,  an  infinite  variety  of  characters,  personal  and 
national,  will  be  produced ;  a  variety  ranging  from  the 
highest  human  grandeur  down  to  the  very  verge  of  the 
grotesque.  But  these  characters,  with  all  their  varia- 
tions, will  go  beyond  their  source  and  their  ideal  only  as 
the  rays  of  light  go  beyond  the  sun.  Humanity,  as  it 
passes  through  phase  after  phase  of  the  historical  move- 
ment, may  advance  indefinitely  in  excellence,  but  its  ad- 
vance will  be  an  indefinite  approximation  to  the  Chris- 
tian Type.  A  divergence  from  that  type,  to  whatever 
extent  it  may  take  place,  will  not  be  progress,  but  de-. 
basement  and  corruption.  In  a  moral  point  of  view,  in  \ 
short,  the  world  may  abandon  Christianity,  but  it  can--'' 
never  advance  beyond  it.     This  is  not  a  matter  of  au- 


132  ON   SOME   SUPrOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

tliority,  or  even  of  Revelation.  If. it  is  true,  it  is  a  mat- 
ter of  reason  as  much  as  any  thing  in  the  world. 

There  are  many  pccnliarities  arising  out  of  personal 
and  historical  circumstances  which  are  incident  to  the 
best  human  characters,  and  which  would  prevent  any 
one  of  them  from  being  universal  or  final  as  a  type. 
But  the  Type  set  up  in  the  Gospels  as  the  Christian 
Type  seems  to  have  escaped  all  these  peculiarities,  and 
to  stand  out  in  unapproached  purity  as  well  as  in  unap- 
proached  perfection  of  moral  excellence. 

The  good  moral  characters  which  we  see  among  men 
fall,  speaking  broadly,  into  two  general  classes  —  those 
which  excite  our  reverence  and  those  which  excite  our 
love.  These  two  classes  are  essentially  identical,  since 
the  object  of  our  reverence  is  that  elevation  above  selfish 
objects,  that  dignity,  majesty,  nobleness,  appearance  of 
moral  strength  which  is  produced  by  a  disregard  of  self- 
ish objects  in  comparison  of  those  which  are  of  a  less 
selfish  and  therefore  of  a  grander  kind.  But,  though  es- 
sentially identical,  they  form,  as  it  were,  two  hemispheres 
in  the  actual  world  of  moral  excellence ;  the  noble  and 
the  amiable,  or,  in  the  language  of  moral  taste,  the  grand 
and  the  beautiful.  Being,  however,  essentially  identical, 
they  constantly  tend  to  fusion  in  the  human  characters 
which  are  nearest  to  perfection,  though,  no  human  char- 
acter being  perfect,  they  are  never  actually  fused.  Now, 
if  the  type  proposed  in  the  Gospels  for  our  imitation 
were  characteristically  noble  or  characteristically  amia- 
ble, characteristically  grand  or  characteristically  beauti- 
ful, it  might  have  great  moral  attractions,  but  it  would 
not  be  universal  or  final.     It  would  belong  to  one  pccul- 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         133 

iar  hemisphere  of  character,  and  even  though  man  might 
not  yet  actually  have  transcended  it,  the  ideal  would  lie 
beyond  it ;  it  would  not  remain  forever  the  mark  and 
goal  of  our  moral  progress.  Butjhe  fact  is,  it  is  neither 
characteristically  noble  and  grand,  nor  characteristically 
amiable  and  beautiful ;  but  both  in  an  equal  degree,  per- 
fectly and  indistinguishably,  the  fusion  of  the  two  classes 
of  qualities  being  complete,  so  that  the  mental  eye, 
though  it  be  strained  to  aching,  can  not  discern  whether 
that  on  which  Jt. gazes  be  more  the  object  of  reverence 

or  of  love. 

There  are  differences  again  between  the  male  and  fe- 
male character,  under  which,  nevertheless,  we  divine  that 
there  lies  a  real  identity,  and  a  consequent  tendency  to 
fusion  in  the  ultimate  ideal.  Had  the  Gospel  type  of 
character  been  stamped  with  the  peculiar  marks  of  either 
sex,  we  should  have  felt  that  there  was  an  ideal  free  from 
those  peculiarities  beyond  it.  But  this  is  not  the  case. 
It  exhibits,  indeed,  the  peculiarly  male  virtue  of  courage 
in  the  highest  degree,  and  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  most 
clear  of  mere  animal  impetuosity  and  most  evidently  a 
virtue;  but  this  form  is  the  one  common  to  both  sexes, 
as  the  annals  of  martyrdom  prove.  The  Eoman  Catho- 
lics have  attempted  to  consecrate  a  female  type,  that  of 
the  Virgin,  by  the  side  of  that  which  they  take  to  be 
characteristically  male.  But  the  result  obviously  is  a 
mutilation  of  the  original  type,  which  really  contained 
all  that  the  other  is  supposed  to  supply,  and  the  creation 
of  a  second  type  which  has  nothing  distinctive,  but  is  in 
its  attributes,  as  well  as  in  its  historj^,  merely  a  pale  and 
partial  reflection  of  the  first. 


134  ON  SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

There  is  an  equally  notable  absence  of  any  of  the  j3C- 
culiarities  which  attend  particular  callings  and  modes  of 
life,  and  which,  though  so  inevitable  under  the  circum- 
stances of  human  society  that  we  have  learned  to  think 
them  beauties,  would  disqualify  a  Character  for  being 
universal  and  the  ideal.  The  life  depicted  in  the  Gospel 
is  one  of  pure  beneficence,  disengaged  from  all  peculiar 
social  circumstances,  yet  adapted  to  all.  In  vain  would 
the  Eoman  Catholic  priest  point  to  it  as  an  example  of  a 
state  like  his  own ;  the  circumstances  of  Christ's  life  and 
mission  repel  any  inferences  of  the  kind. 

The  Christian  Type  of  Character,  if  it  was  constructed 
by  human  intellect,  was  constructed  at  the  confluence  of 
three  races,  the  Jewish,  the  Greek,  and  the  Eoman,  each 
of  which  had  strong  national  peculiarities  of  its  own.  A 
single  touch,  a  single  taint  of  any  one  of  those  peculiari- 
ties, and  the  character  would  have  been  national,  not 
universal ;  transient,  not  eternal :  it  might  have  been  the 
highest  character  in  history,  but  it  would  have  been  dis- 
qualified for  being  the  ideal.  Supposing  it  to  have  been 
human,  whether  it  were  the  effort  of  a  real  man  to  attain 
moral  excellence,  or  a  moral  imagination  of  the  writers 
of  the  Gospels,  the  chances,  surely,  were  infinite  against 
its  escaping  any  tincture  of  the  fanaticism,  formalism,  and 
exclusivencss  of  the  Jew,  of  the  political  pride  of  the  Eo- 
man, of  the  intellectual  pride  of  the  Greek.  Yet  it  has 
entirely  escaped  them  all. 

Historical  circumstances  affect  character  sometimes  di- 
rectly, sometimes  by  way  of  reaction.  The  formalism  of 
the  Pharisees  might  have  been  expected  to  drive  any 
character  with  which  it  was  brought  into  collision  into 


THE   DOCTKINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PEOGRESS.  135 

the  opposite  extreme  of  laxity  ;  yet  no  such  effect  can  be 
discerned.  Antinomianism  is  clearly  a  deflection  from  the 
Christian  pattern,  and  the  offspring  of  a  subsequent  age. 

The  political  circumstances  of  Juda^^a,  as  a  country  suf- 
fering from  the  oppression  of  foreign  conquerors,  were 
calculated  to  produce  in  the  oppressed  Jews  either  insur- 
rectionary violence  (which  was  constantly  breaking  out) 
or  the  dull  apathy  of  Oriental  submission.  But  the  Life 
which  is  the  example  of  Christians  escaped  both  these 
natural  impressions.  It  was  an  active  and  decisive  attack 
on  the  evils  of  the  age;  but  the  attack  was  directed,  not 
against  political  tyranny  or  its  agents,  but  against  the 
moral  corruption  which  was  its  source. 

There  are  certain  qualities  which  are  not  virtues  in 
themselves,  but  are  made  virtues  by  time  and  circum- 
stance, and  with  their  times  and  circumstances  pass  away, 
yet,  while  they  last,  are  often  naturally  and  almost  neces- 
sarily esteemed  above  those  virtues  which  are  most  real 
and  universal.  These  factitious  virtues  are  the  offspring 
for  the  most  part  of  early  states  of  society,  and  the  at- 
tendant narrowness  of  moral  vision.  Such  was  headlong 
valor  among  the  Northmen.  Such  was,  and  is,  punctilious 
hospitality  among  the  tribes  of  the  Desert.  Such  was  the 
fanatical  patriotism  of  the  ancients,  which  remained  a  vir- 
tue, while  the  nation  remained  the  largest  sphere  of  moral 
sympathy  known  to  man — his  vision  not  having  yet  em- 
braced his  kind.  The  taint  of  one  of  these  factitious  and 
temporary  virtues  would,  in  the  eye  of  historical  philoso- 
phy, have  been  as  fatal  to  the  perfection  and  universality 
of  a  type  of  character  as  the  taint  of  a  positive  vice.  Not 
only  the  fellow- countrymen,  but  the   companions  and 


136  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES   OF 

apostles  of  Christ  -were,  by  tlic  account  of  the  Gospels, 
imbued  with  that  Jewish  patriotism,  the  fanatical  intensi- 
ty of  which  disgusted  even  the  ancient  world.  They  de- 
sired to  convert  their  Master  into  a  patriot  chief,  and  to 
turn  His  universal  mission  into  one  for  the  peculiar  bene- 
fit of  His  own  race.  Had  they  succeeded  in  doing  so,  even 
in  the  slightest  degree — or,  to  take  a  different  hypothesis, 
had  those  who  constructed  the  mythical  character  of  Christ 
admitted  into  it  the  slightest  tinge  of  a  quality  which  they 
could  hardly,  without  a  miracle,  distinguish  from  a  real 
virtue — the  time  would  have  arrived  when,  the  vision  of 
man  being  enlarged,  and  his  aifection  for  his  country  be- 
coming subordinate  to  his  affection  for  his  kind,  the  Chris- 
tian Type  would  have  grown  antiquated,  and  would  have 
been  left  behind  in  the  progress  of  history  toward  a  high- 
er and  ampler  ideal.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  A  just 
affection  for  country  may  indeed  find  its  prototype  in  Him 
who  wept  over  the  impending  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
and  who  offered  the  Gospel  first  to  the  Jew,  but  His  char- 
acter stands  clear  of  the  narrow  partiality  which  it  is  the 
tendency  of  advancing  civilization  to  discard.  From  ex- 
aggerated patriotism  and  from  exaggerated  cosmopolitan- 
ism the  Christian  Example  is  equally  free. 

Asceticism,  again,  if  it  has  never  been  a  virtue,  even 
under  exceptional  circumstances,  is  very  easily  mistaken 
for  one,  and  has  been  almost  universally  mistaken  for  one 
in  the  East.  There  arc  certain  states  of  society — such,  for 
example,  as  that  which  the  Western  monks  were  called 
upon  to  evangelize  and  civilize  by  their  exertions  —  in 
which  it  is  diflicult  to  deny  the  usefulness  and  merit  of 
an  ascetic  life.     But,  had  the  type  of  character  set  before 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         137 

US  in  the  Gospel  been  ascetic,  our  social  experience  must 
have  discarded  it  in  the  long  run,  as  our  moral  experience 
would  have  discarded  it  in  the  long  run  had  it  been  con- 
nected with  those  formal  observances  into  the  consecra- 
tion of  which  asceticism  almost  inevitably  falls.  But  the 
type  of  character  set  before  us  in  the  Gospels  is  not  ascet- 
ic, though  it  is  the  highest  exhibition  of  self-denial.  Nor 
is  it  connected  with  formal  observances,  though,  for  rea- 
sons which  are  of  universal  and  permanent  validity,  it 
provisionally  condescends  to  the  observances  established 
in  the  Jewish  Church.  The  character  of  the  Essenes,  as 
painted  by  Josephus,  which  seems  to  outvie  the  Christian 
character  in  purity  and  self-denial,  is  tainted  both  with 
asceticism  and  formalism,  and,  though  a  lofty  and  pure 
conception,  could  not  have  been  accepted  by  man  as  per- 
manent and  universal. 

Cast  your  eyes  over  the  human  characters  of  history, 
and  observe  to  how  great  an  extent  the  most  soaring  and 
eccentric  of  them  are  the  creatures  of  their  country  and 
their  age.  Examine  the  most  poetic  of  human  visions, 
and  mark  how  closely  they  are  connected,  either  by  way 
of  direct  emanation  or  of  reaction,  with  the  political  and 
social  circumstances  amidst  which  they  were  conceived ; 
how  manifestly  the  Utopia  of  Plato  is  an  emanation  from 
the  Spartan  commonwealth.  Low  manifestly  the  Utopia 
of  Eousseau  is  a  reaction  against  the  artificial  society  of 
Paris.  T^hat  likelihood,  then,  was  there  that  the  imag- 
ination  of  a  peasant  of  .Galilee  would  spring  at  a  bound 
beyond  plaec, and  time,  and  create  a  type  of  character  per- 
fectly distinct  in  its  personality,  yet  entirely  free  from  all 
that  entered  into  the  special  personalities  of  the  age ;  a 


1S8  ON  SOME   SUITOSED   CONSEQUENCES   OF 

type  wbicli  satisfies  ns  as  entirely  as  it  satisfied  him,  and 
wbicL,  as  far  as  we  can  sec  or  imagine,  will  satisfy  all  men 
to  the  end  of  time. 

The  character  of  Mohammed,  and  the  character  which 
is  represented  by  the  name  of  Buddha,  were  no  doubt 
great  improvements  in  their  day  on  any  thing  which  had 
preceded  them  among  the  races  out  of  which  they  arose. 
But  the  character  of  Mohammed  was  deeply  tainted  with 
fierce  Arab  enterprise,  that  of  Buddha  with  languid  East- 
ern resignation;  and  all  progress  among  the  nations  by 
which  these  types  were  consecrated  has  long  since  come 
to  an  end. 

M,  Comte  has  constructed  for  his  sect  a  whimsical  Cal- 
endar of  historic  characters,  in  imitation  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Calendar  of  Saints.  Each  month  and  each  day 
is  given  to  the  historic  representative  of  some  great 
achievement  of  Ilumanity.  Theocracy  is  there,  repre- 
sented by  Moses,  ancient  poetry  by  Ilomer,  ancient  phi- 
losophy by  Aristotle,  Eoman  Civilization  by  Caesar,  Feud- 
al Civilization  by  Charlemagne,  and  so  forth ;  the  ancient 
Saints  having  their  modern  counterparts,  and  each  hav- 
ing a  crowd  of  minor  Saints  belonging  to  the  same  de- 
partment of  historical  progress  in  his  train.  Catholicism 
is  there,  represented  somewhat  strangely  by  St.  Paul  in- 
stead of  St.  Peter.  Christianity  is  not  there,  neither  is 
Christ.  It  can  not  be  asserted  that  a  person  circumstan- 
tially mentioned  by  Tacitus  is  less  historical  than  Prome- 
theus, Orpheus,  and  Numa,  who  all  appear  in  this  Calen- 
dar; and  the  allegation  that  there  is  no  Christianity  but 
Catholicism,  and  that  St.  Paul,  not  Christ,  was  its  real 
founder,  is  too  plainly  opposed  to  facts  to  need  discus- 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         139 

sion.  The  real  reason,  I  apprehend,  is  that  Christianity 
and  its  Author,  though  unquestionably  historical,  have 
no  peculiar  historical  characteristics,  and  no  limited  place 
in  history.  And  are  we  to  believe  that  men  whose  cul- 
ture was  so  small,  and  whose  range  of  vision  was  neces- 
sarily so  limited  as  those  of  the  first  Christians,  produced 
a  character  which  a  French  atheist  philosopher  of  the 
nineteenth  century  finds  himself  unable  to  treat  as  hu- 
man, and  place,  in  its  historical  relations,  among  the  hu- 
man benefactors  of  the  race  ?  Do  you  imagine  that  it  is 
from  respect  for  the  feelings  of  Christian  society  that  M. 
Comte  hesitates  to  put  this  name  into  his  Calendar  be- 
side the  names  of  Ca3sar  and  Frederick  the  Great?  The 
treatise  in  which  the  Calendar  is  given  opens  witli  an 
announcement  that  M.  Comte,  by  a  decisive  proclama- 
tion, made  at  what  he  is  pleased  to  style  the  memorable 
conclusion  of  his  course  of  lectures,  has  inaugurated  the 
reign  of  Humanity  and  put  an  end  to  the  reign  of  God. 

The  essence  of  man's  moral  nature,  clothed  with  a  per- 
sonality so  vivid  and  intense  as  to  excite  through  all 
ages  the  most  intense  affection,  yet  divested  of  all  those 
peculiar  characteristics,  the  accidents  of  place  and  time, 
by  whicli  human  personalities  are  marked  —  what  other 
notion  than  this  can  philosophy  form  of  Divinity  mani- 
fest on  earth  ? 

The  acute  and  candid  author  of  "  The  Soul"  and  the 
"  Phases  of  Faith"  has  felt,  though  he  has  not  clearly  ex- 
pressed, the  critical  importance  of  this  question.  He  has 
felt  that  a  perfect  type  of  character  was  the  essence  of  a 
practical  religion,  and  that,  if  the  Christian  type  was  per- 
fect, it  would  be  hopeless  to  set  up  a  new  religion  beside 


140  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

it.  Accordingly,  be  tries  to  point  out  imperfections  in 
the  character  of  Christ,  and  the  imperfections  which  ho 
points  out  are  two  in  number.  The  first  is  the  exhibi- 
tion of  indignation  against  the  hypocritical  and  soul- 
murdering  tyranny  of  the  Pharisees.  This  is  surely  a 
strange  exception  to  be  taken  by  one  who  is  himself  a 
generous  denouncer  of  tyranny  and  oppression.  I  have 
little  doubt  that,  had  no  indignation  against  sanctimoni- 
ous crime  been  exhibited,  its  absence  would  have  been 
seized  upon  as  a  proof  of  imperfect  humanity.  The  sec- 
ond defect  alleged  is  the  absence  of  mirth,  and  of  laugh- 
ter as  its  natural  and  genial  manifestation.  This  objec- 
tion, though  it  grates  strangely  on  our  cars,  is  not  unrea- 
sonable. Mirth  is  a  real  part  of  our  moral  nature,  sig- 
nificant as  well  as  the  rest.  The  great  ministers  of  i3ure 
and  genial  mirth,  Cervantes,  Shakspeare,  Moliere,  have 
fulfilled  a  moral  mission  of  mercy  and  justice  as  well  as 
of  pleasure  to  mankind,  and  have  their  place  of  honor  in 
history  with  the  other  great  benefactors  of  the  race. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  attempts  to  expel  mirth  from 
human  life  and  character  made  by  certain  austere  sects 
have  resulted  not  only  in  moroseness,  but  in  actual  de- 
pravity. If  this  element  of  good  in  history  is  really 
alien  to  the  Christian  type,  the  Christian  type  is  imper- 
fect; we  shall  have  a  moral  life  beside  it  and  beyond  it, 
and  at  a  certain  point  we  shall  become  aware  of  its  im- 
perfection, and  our  absolute  allegiance  to  it  will  cease. 
But,  before  determining  this  question,  the  objector  would 
have  done  well  to  inquire  what  mirth  really  was;  wheth- 
er it  was  a  radically  distinct  feeling,  or  only  a  phase  of 
feeling;  and  whether  laughter  was  of  its  essence  or  only 


THE   DOCTEINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         141 

an  accident?  Mirth,  pity,  and  contempt  seem  to  be  three 
emotions  which  are  all  excited  by  human  weakness.  To 
weakness  add  suffering,  and  mirth  is  turned  to  pity ;  add 
vice,  and  mirth  is  turned  to  contempt.  Mirth  itself  is 
excited  by  weakness  alone,  which  it  discriminates  alike 
from  the  weakness  of  vice  on  the  one  hand,  and  from 
weakness  attended  by  suffering  on  the  other.  The  ex- 
pression of  contempt  is  a  sarcastic  laughter,  akin  to  the 
laughter  of  mirth,  and  the  milder  form  of  pity  betrays 
itself  in  a  smile.  There  is,  moreover,  evidently  a  close 
connection  between  laughter  and  tears.  Pity,  not  mirth, 
would  be  the  characteristic  emotion  of  one  who  was 
brought  habitually  into  contact  with  the  weakness  of  hu- 
manity in  the  form  of  suffering ;  but  the  same  power  of 
sympathy  would  render  him  capable  of  genial  mirth  if 
brought  into  contact  with  weakness  in  a  merely  gro- 
tesque and  comic  form.  According  as  the  one  or  the 
other  was  his  lot,  his  character  would  take  a  brighter  or 
a  sadder  hue ;  but  we  can  not  help  feeling  that  the  lot 
of  man  here  having  more  in  it  of  the  painful  than  of  the 
laughable,  the  sadder  character  is  the  more  sympathetic, 
the  more  human,  and  the  deeper  of  the  two.  That  a 
feeling  for  human  weakness  is  wanting  in  the  type  of 
Character  presented  to  us  by  the  Gospels  will  hardly  be 
affirmed,  though  the  feelings  take  the  sadder  and  deeper 
form,  the  gayer  and  brighter  form  being  obviously  ex- 
cluded by  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  as  the  Gospel 
history  sets  it  forth.  Perhaps,  indeed,  the  exclusion  is 
not  so  absolute  but  that  a  trace  of  the  happier  emotion 
may  be  discerned.  Just  at  the  point  where  human  mirth 
passes  into  pity  there  is  a  shade  of  tender  irony,  which 


142  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

forms  the  good  element  of  the  whole  school  of  sentiment- 
al humorists,  such  as  Sterne  and  Carlylc,  and  which  has 
for  its  exciting  cause  the  littleness  and  frailty  of  man's 
estate.  This  shade  of  irony  is  perhaps  just  perceptible 
in  such  passages  as  that  which  compares  the  laborious 
glory  of  Solomon  with  the  unlabored  beauty  of  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  a  passage  by  which  Mr.  Carlyle  is  strongly 
attracted,  and  in  which  he  evidently  recognizes  the  root 
of  that  which  is  true  in  his  own  view  of  the  world.  It 
would  seem  then  that  mirth,  humor,  the  great  masters 
of  mirth  and  humor,  and  the  whole  of  that  element  in 
the  estate  and  history  of  man,  are  not  beyond  the  Chris- 
tian type  of  character,  but  within  it. 

Mr.  Newman  has  attempted  to  deny  not  only  that 
the  Christian  type  of  Character  is  perfect,  but  that  it  is 
unique.  What  character  then  in  history  is  its  equal? 
If  a  rival  can  be  found,  the  allegiance  of  humanity  may 
be  divided  or  transferred.  Mr.  Newman  fixes,  evidently 
with  some  misgiving,  and  without  caring  accurately  to 
verify  a  youthful  recollection,  on  the  chfyacter  of  Fletch- 
er of  Madeley.  Fletcher's  character  was  no  doubt  one 
of  remarkable  beauty,  and  certainly  not  wanting  in  right- 
eous indignation  against  Pharisees.  But,  being  that  of 
an  Evangelical  Divine,  it  was  produced,  not  independent- 
ly, but  by  a  constant  imitation  of  the  Character  of  Christ. 
Mr.  Newman  should  have  gone  elsewhere  for  an  inde- 
pendent instance ;  to  the  School  of  Socrates,  to  the  School 
of  Homaa  Stoicism,  to  the  Court  and  Camp  of  Bonaparte, 
lie  knows  history  too  well. 

The  truth  is,  that  Sectarianism  has  narrowed  not  only 
the  pale  of  Christianity,  but  the  type  of  Christian  charac- 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.        143 

ter,  and  made  men  think  of  it  as  a  rigid,  austere,  priestly, 
or  puritanic  mould,  shutting  out  the  varied  grandeur, 
beauty,  and  beneficence  of  history,  so  that  a  schism  has 
been  produced  between  the  consecrated  type  and  the 
heart  of  man.  There  are  in  history  a  multitude  of  mixed 
characters,  often  of  a  very  fascinating  kind.  In  these 
we  must  separate  the  good  from  the  evil  before  we  pro- 
nounce that  the  good  does  not  belong  to  Christianit3^  I 
will  take  a  mixed  character  which  I  have  more  than 
once  used  as  an  illustration  before,  and  to  which  all  his- 
torians have  been  strongly  attracted  in  spite  of  its  great 
defects  —  the  character  of  Wallenstein.  If  that  which  is 
a  real  object  of  moral  admiration  in  Wallenstein  can  be 
shown  to  be  Christian,  as  crucial  an  experiment  as  it  is 
easy  to  devise  will  have  been  successfully  performed. 
But  we  must  begin  by  examining  the  character  closely, 
and  set  aside  those  parts  of  it  which  are  not  the  real  ob- 
jects of  moral  admiration.  In  the  first  place,  we  must 
set  aside  the  mere  irregularity,  which  has  in  it  nothing 
moral,  but  by  which  we  are  fascinated  in  no  slight  de- 
gree. When  morality  is  presented  to  us  in  itself  as  the 
object  of  our  moral  affections,  we  can  not  help  entirely 
loving  it;  but  when  it  is  presented  to  us  as  a  formal  law, 
we  can  not  help  a  little  hating  it ;  and  we  are  pleased 
when  we  are  able  to  rebel  against  its  letter,  with  the 
spirit,  or  some  semblance  of  it,  on  our  side  —  a  feeling 
which  is  the  real  talisman  of  all  that  school  of  sentiment- 
al literature  of  which  Byron  is  the  chief  In  the  second 
place,  we  must  set  aside  Wallenstein's  reserve  and  lone- 
liness, qualities  which  please  us  partly  because  they  ex- 
cite our  curiosity  and  stimulate  our  social  affections  by  a 


144     ON  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

sort  of  half-denial ;  partly  also  because,  from  experience, 
tbey  raise  in  us  an  expectation  of  real  moral  excellences, 
strength  of  mind,  and  that  capacity  for  ^Yarnl  affection 
which  often  lurks  in  the  most  reserved  characters,  Avhilc 
it  is  wanting  in  the  least  reserved.  "We  must  set  aside 
again  mere  intellectual  power,  which  is  never  the  object 
of  moral  admiration  except  as  the  instrument,  actual  or 
presumptive,  of  moral  virtue.  The  darker  parts  of  Wal- 
lenstein's  character,  his  violence  and  unscrupulousness, 
are  set  aside  without  question :  no  one  can  worship  them 
but  the  wicked  or  the  delirious.  There  remains  the  maj- 
esty of  his  character,  crowned  by  his  proud  and  silent 
death.  Now  this  majesty  was  produced  by  sacrificing 
the  lower  and  meaner  appetites  and  passions — above  all, 
the  passion  of  fear,  to  a  moral  ideal,  which,  such  as  it 
was,  Wallcnstein  struggled  to  attain.  The  ideal  was  to 
a  great  extent  a  false  one,  and  deeply  tainted  by  the  ab- 
sence of  religious  sentiment  to  which  a  great  man  placed 
in  the  midst  of  bigots  and  Jesuits  was  naturally  reduced. 
But  it  was  an  ideal ;  and  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal,  though 
it  be  that  of  a  Cynic,  is  essentially  the  pursuit  of  an  un- 
selfish object;  it  is  an  endeavor  to  elevate  humanity  at 
the  expense  of  the  selfish  appetites  of  the  individual 
man.  The  end  of  such  endeavors  is  a  common  good.  It 
is  an  addition  to  the  high  examples  and  the  nobleness  of 
the  world.  Nor  is  the  reward  any  thing  but  the  affec- 
tion of  man,  which  proud,  high  characters  only  seek  more 
deeply  when  they  seem  perhaps,  even  to  themselves,  to 
scorn  and  repel  it.  The  case  may  be  put  in  other,  prob- 
ably in  more  exact  and  truer  terms,  but  I  do  not  think 
it  can  be  put  so  as  to  make  it  any  thing  but  a  case  of 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         145 

self-denial  and  self-sacrifice;  and  if  it  be  a  case  of  self- 
denial  and  self-sacrifice,  it  belongs  to  the  Christian  type. 
To  the  same  type  unquestionably  belongs  that  resigna- 
tion in  death  which  so  deeply  moves  our  hearts  as  a  vic- 
tory over  our  great  common  enemy,  and  which  completes 
the  historical  figure  of  Wallenstein.  His  acts  of  mercy, 
his  protests  against  cruel  persecution,  the  traits  of  his 
conjugal  affection,  need  no  reconciling  explanation  to 
bring  them  within  the  Christian  pale. 

History  will  trace  a  moral  connection,  where  it  really 
exists,  through  all  intellectual  divisions  and  under  all 
eclipses  of  intellectual  fliith.  In  her  eyes  Christendom 
remains  morally  one,  though  divided  ecclesiastically  by  a 
thousand  accidents,  by  a  thousand  infirmities,  by  a  thou- 
sand faults. 

It  is  said  that  Voltaire  and  Eousseau  were  great  con- 
tributors to  human  progress,  and  that  they  were  not 
Christians,  but  enemies  to  Christianity  and  outcasts  from 
the  Christian  pale.  I  admit  that  Voltaire  and  Eousseau, 
in  spite  of  the  fearful  mischief  which  every  rational  man 
must  admit  them  to  have  done,  were  contributors  to  hu- 
man progress,  but  I  deny  that,  so  far  as  they  were  con- 
tributors to  human  progress,  they  were  enemies  to  Chris- 
tianity or  outcasts  from  the  Christian  pale.  Voltaire 
contributed  to  human  progress  in  spite  of  his  unchris- 
tian levity,  mockery,  vanity,  and  obscenity,  by  preaching 
Christian  beneficence,  Christian  toleration.  Christian  hu- 
manity, Christian  hatred  of  Pharisaical  oppression.  Eous- 
seau contributed  to  human  progress  in  spite  of  his  un- 
christian impurity,  and  the  egotistical  madness  from 
which  ]-)ractical  Christianity  would  have  saved  him  by 

G 


146  ON  SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

preaching  Christian  brotherhood  and  Christian  simplicity 
of  life.  Eousseau's  writings  arc  full  of  the  Gospel.  His 
theory  of  the  world  is  couched  in  distinctly  Gospel  lan- 
guage, and  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  Christian  minister. 
Voltaire  railed  against  what  he  imagined  was  Christian- 
ity, but  you  see  in  a  moment  it  was  not  the  real  Chris- 
tianity ;  it  was  the  Christianity  of  the  false,  corrupt,  and 
persecuting  State  Church  of  France,  the  Christianity 
which  recalled  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  which  inspired  the 
Dragonnades,  which,  in  the  absurd  name  of  the  religion 
of  love,  murdered  Calas  and  La  Barre.  Whom  did  Vol- 
taire call  the  best  of  men?  Of  whom  did  he  say,  with 
an  earnestness  to  which  his  nature  was  almost  a  stranger, 
that  he  loved  them,  and  that,  if  he  could,  he  would  pass 
the  rest  of  his  life  among  them  in  a  distant  land  ?  It 
was  not  the  philosophers  of  Paris  or  Berlin  of  whom  he 
spoke  thus,  but  the  (Quakers,  with  whose  sect,  then  in  its 
happiest  hour,  he  had  come  into  contact  during  his  resi- 
dence in  England,  and  whose  benevolence,  tolerance,  and 
gentle  virtues  he  recognizes  as  identical  at  once  with 
those  of  the  Primitive  Christians  and  with  his  own. 

The  French  Revolution  again,  with  all  its  crimes  and 
follies,  must,  up  to  a  certain  point  in  its  course,  be  accept- 
ed as  a  step,  though  a  sinister  and  equivocal  step,  in  the 
progress  of  mankind.  But  we  have  brought  all  that  was 
good  in  the  French  Revolution — its  aspirations  after  uni- 
versal brotlierhood,  and  a  universal  reign  of  liberty  and 
justice — into  the  pale  of  moral  Christianity  with  Rous- 
seau and  Voltaire.  From  no  other  source  than  Christian- 
ity was  derived  the  genuine  spirit  of  self-devotion  whicli, 
it  is  vain  to  doubt,  sent  forth  on  a  crusade  for  the  free- 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  HISTORICAL  PROGRESS.        147 

dom  and  happiness  of  man  the  best  soldiers  of  the  Eevo- 
lutionary  armies  —  those  of  whom  Hoche  and  Marceau 
were  the  gentle,  brave,  and  chivalrous  types.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  not  from  Christianity,  but  from  a  dark 
depravation  of  Christianity,  abhorred  by  all  in  whom  the 
graces  of  the  Christian  character  are  seen,  that  the  Mon- 
tagnards  derived  that  lust  of  persecution  which  repro- 
duced the  Inquisition  and  its  butcheries  in  the  Commit- 
tee of  Public  Safety  and  the  Eeign  of  Terror.  There  are 
men,  neither  mad  nor  wicked,  to  whom  the  enthusiasts 
of  the  Jacobin  Club  are  still  objects  of  fervent  admira- 
tion. Such  a  feeling  is  strange,  but  not  unaccountable. 
The  account  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  faint  tradition 
of  Christian  fraternity  which  passed  from  the  Gospel 
through  Eousseau  to  Eobespierre  and  St.  Just,  and  which 
has  redeemed  even  these  sinister  names  from  the  utter 
execration  of  history.  Deej?  as  was  the  abyss  of  crime 
into  which  those  fanatics  fell,  there  was  a  deeper  abj^ss 
beyond.  All  influence  of  Christianity  was  indeed  gone 
when  the  lives  of  millions  and  the  hopes  of  a  world  were 
sacrificed,  not  to  any  political  or  social  visions,  however 
chimerical,  but  to  the  ntterly  selfish  and  utterly  atheistic 
ambition  of  Napoleon.  The  worship  of  that  conqueror 
by  the  nation  which  gave  the  blood  of  its  children  to  his 
evil  deity  for  the  sake  of  sharing  his  domination  was,  un- 
der the  forms'  of  a  civilized  age,  the  worship  of  Moloch 
and  the  worship  of  Ca3sar,  the  old  antagonists  of  Jehovah 
and  of  Christ.  Comte  is  at  least  an  impartial  witness  in 
this  matter;  and  Comte  sees  progress  in  Jacobinism, 
where  Christianity  was  still  faintly  present,  while  he 
most  justly  pronounces  the  domination  of  Napoleon  to 
have  been  utterly  retrograde. 


148  ox  SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

x/    Docs  Cliristianit}',  then,  interfere  ■with  progress  of  any 

'particular  kind,  intellectual  or  industrial? 

Does  it  interfere  with  the  progress  of  science?     As  a 
matter  of  fact,  science  has  not  only  been  advanced,  but 

/"for  the  most  part  created  by  Christians.  A  bifflted  or 
cowardly  theology  has  indeed  created  some  confusion  in 
the  relations  between  science  and  religion,  by  attempting 
to  dominate  bcj^ond  its  jDroper  sphere ;  but  the  highest 
scientific  minds  have  found  no  difficulty  in  keeping  their 
own  course  clear,  and  jDreserving  religious  and  moral 
Christianity,  in  spite  of  any  imperfections  in  the  scientific 
ideas  of  its  teachers  caused  by  their  having  lived  in  an 
unscientific  age.  That  religious  persecution  has  fearful- 
ly interfered  with  science,  and  every  other  kind  of  intel- 
lectual progress,  both  by  its  direct  and  its  indirect  effects, 
may  be  easily  granted.  But  the  tendency  to  persecution 
has  historically  been  limited  to  countries  in  which  cer- 
tain vicious  relations  existed  between  religion  and  polit- 
ical power.  If  it  has  been  found  beyond  these  limits,  it 
was  as  a  lingering  habit  and  in  an  expiring  state. 

Is  it  the  Christian  conception  of  God  that  is  likely  to 
conflict  with  the  progress  of  science  or  of  moral  philoso- 
phy? Wc  see  at  once  that  Polytheism,  subjecting  the 
difTerent  parts  of  nature  to  the  sway  of  different  powers, 
conflicts  with  the  unity  of  creation  which  the  progress 
of  science  displays.  Let  it  be  shown  that  Christian  Mon- 
otheism docs  the  same.  There  is  indeed — and  it  is  a 
momentous  fact  in  historical  philosophy — what  Hume 
calls  a  Natural  History  of  Religion.  All  nations  have 
been  endowed  with  the  same  germ  or  religious  senti- 
ment, but  they  have  made  to  themselves  different  images 


THE  DOCTEINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS,         149 

of  God,  according  to  tlie  peculiar  aspects  of  nature  with 
which  they  were  brought  into  contact,  and  the  state  of 
their  own  civilization.  The  tendency  is  not  yet  extinct. 
ISTarrow-minded  men  of  science,  accustomed  to  only  one 
sphere  of  thought,  still  create  for  themselves  what  they 
think  a  grander  Deity  in  their  own  image,  rob  the  Divine 
Nature  of  its  moral  part,  and  set  up  a  Scientific  God.  If 
the  Christian  conception  of  the  Deity  were  tainted  by 
one  of  these  historical  accidents,  even  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree, the  time  would  come,  in  the  course  of  human  in- 
quiry, when  history  would  acknowledge  the  grandeur  of 
such  a  conception,  record  its  temporary  beneficence,  and 
number  it  with  the  past.  But  it  is  tainted  with  no  his- 
torical accident  whatever.  It  is  Pure  Paternity.  What 
discoveries  respecting  man  or  the  world,  what  progress 
of  science  or  philosophy,  can  be  imagined  with  which  the 
simple  conception  of  God  as  the  Father  of  All  could  pos- 
sibly conflict  ? 

It  is  true  that  Christianity  has  something  of  a  m^-s- 
terious  character.  But  that,  on  this  account,  it  must  in- 
terfere with  intellectual  freedom,  or  any  thing  for  which 
intellectual  freedom  is  requisite,  can  hardly  be  said,  when 
Hume  himself  emphatically  speaks  of  the  world  as  a  mys- 
tery, and  when  the  acutest  writers  of  the  same  school  at 
the  present  day  find  it  necessary  to  gratify  a  true  intel- 
lectual instinct  by  reminding  us  that,  after  all,  beyond  that 
which  science  makes  known  to  us  there  lies  the  mysteri- 
ous Unknown,* 

The  moral  source  and  support  of  great  scientific  in- 
quiries, as  of  other  great  undertakings  for  the  good  of 

*  Sec  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  work  on  "First  Princijilcs,"  p,  223. 


150  ON  SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES   OF 

mankind,  is  self-devotion,  and  self-devotion  is  the  Chris- 
tian virtue. 

^   Does    Christianity   interfere   with  political  progress? 

•  The  great  instrument  of  political  progress  is  generally 
allowed,  to  be  liberty.  It  is  allowed  to  be  so  ultimately 
even  by  those  who  wish  to  suppress  it  provisionally,  and 
to  inaugurate  for  the  present  a  despotic  dictatorship  of 
their  own  ideas.  And  Christianity,  by  first  proclaiming 
the^  equality  and  brotherhood  of  men,  became  the  parent 
of  just  and  enduring  liberty.  What  spiritual  power  pre- 
sided over  the  birth  of  our  free  institutions  ?  Was  it  not 
the  earnest  though  narrow  and  distorted  Christianity  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  which  still,  though  its  hour  is  past,  shows 
its  ancient  spirit  in  Montalembert  ?  What  power  was  it 
that  directly  consecrated  the  principle  of  local  self-govern- 
ment, the  foundation  of  all  true  liberty,  in  the  religious 
association  of  the  parish?  Cast  your  C3'cs  over  the  map 
of  nations,  and  see  whether  sincere  Christianity  and  polit- 
ical freedom  arc  unsuited  to  dwell  together.  Name,  if 
you  can,  any  great  Christian  philosopher  who  has  been 
an  enemy  to  freedom.  On  the  other  hand,  Ilobbes,  Bo- 
lingbroke,IIume,  Gibbon,  were  Imperialists ;  they  all  be- 
longed, though  in  different  degrees,  to  the  school  which 
takes  a  sensual  and  animal  view  of  man,  mistrusts  all 
moral  and  spiritual  restraints,  and  desires  a  strong  des- 
potism to  preserve  tranquillity,  refinement,  and  the  enjoy- 
ments and  conveniences  of  life.  It  need  not  be  added 
that  the  most  fanatical  enemies  of  Christianity  at  the  pres- 
ent day  are  also  fanatical  Imperialists.  We  have  almost 
a  decisive  instance  of  the  two  opposite  tendencies  in  the 
case  of  Rousseau  and  Voltaire.     Rousseau  had  far  more 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         151 

of  the  Gospel  in  bis  pliilosopby  than  Yoltaire ;  and  while 
the  political  Utopia  of  Voltaire  inclined  on  the  whole  to 
Imperialism,  being,  in  fact,  a  visionary  China,  and  his  sym- 
pathies were  with  those  whom  he  imagined  to  be  the  be- 
neficent despots  of  his  age,  the  political  Utopia  of  Eous- 
seau  inclined  to  an  exaggeration  of  liberty,  being  a  vis- 
ionary State  of  Nature,  and  his  sympathies  were  entirely 
with  the  people.  What  are  the  elements  external  to 
itself  which  Christianity  has  found  most  cognate,  and  of 
which  it  has  taken  up  most  into  its  own  system  ?  They 
are  the  two  free  nations  of  antiquity — nations  whose  free- 
dom indeed  was  a  narrow,  and  therefore  a  short-lived  one, 
compared  with  that  of  Christendom,  but  whose  thoughts 
and  works  were  those  of  the  free.  The  game  of  freedom 
is  a  bold  game ;  those  who  play  it,  unlike  the  Imperialist, 
must  be  prepared  to  face  present  turbulence,  extravagance, 
and  waywardness,  and  much  besides  that  is  disappointing 
and  repulsive,  for  the  sake  of  results  which  are  often  dis- 
tant ;  while  the  Imperialist  proposes,  by  a  beneficent  dic- 
tatorship, to  keep  all  calm  and  rational  for  at  least  one 
life.  And  this  bold  game  Christianity,  by  the  force  of 
her  spiritual  elevation,  and  of  her  cardinal  virtue  of  hope, 
has  always  shown  herself  able  and  ready  to  play.  By 
mere  force  of  spiritual  elevation,  with  no  philosophic 
chart  of  the  future  to  guide  and  assure  her,  she  turned 
with  a  victorious  steadiness  of  conviction,  such  as  science 
itself  could  scarcely  have  imparted,  from  the  dying  civili- 
zation of  Eome  to  the  fierce,  coarse,  destroying  barbarism 
out  of  which,  through  her  training,  was  to  spring  a  higher 
civilization,  a  gentler  as  well  as  a  better  world.  If  Chris- 
tianity has  ever  seemed  to  be  the  ally  of  despotism,  it  was 


152     ON  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

because  she  was  herself  corrupted  and  disguised  cither 
by  delirious  asceticism,  confounding  self-degradation  with 
humility,  or  by  ecclesiastical  Jesuitism  intriguing  with  po- 
litical power.  The  second  of  these  agencies  has  indeed 
been  at  work  on  a  great  and  terrible  scale  —  on  such  a 
scale  that  those  who  saw  no  other  form  of  Christianity 
around  them  may  well  be  jDardoned  for  having  taken 
Christianity  to  be  an  enemy  of  liberty  as  well  as  of  the 
truth.  But  the  facts  of  history  point  the  other  way.  The 
seriousness  of  Christianity  and  its  deep  sense  of  individual 
responsibility  opposed  themselves,  though  in  a  stern  and 
harsh  form,  to  Stuart  despotism,  with  its  Buckingham,  its 
"Book  of  Sports,"  and  its  disregard  of  morality  and  truth. 
The  spiritual  energy  and  hopefulness  of  Christianity  op- 
posed themselves  to  the  old  Imperialism  of  Hobbes  and 
the  Sensualists,  who  would  have  sacrificed  the  hopes  of 
humanity  to  material  convenience.  The  charity  and  hu- 
mility of  Christianity  oppose  themselves  to  the  new  Im- 
perialism, which  we  are  told  is  to  inaugurate  a  fresh  era 
of  civilization,  and  which  is,  in  fact,  an  insane  reverie  of 
rampant  egotism,  dreaming  of  itself  as  clothed  with  abso- 
lute power  to  force  its  own  theories  on  the  world. 

Does  political  progress  depend  on  theory  ?  AVhy  should 
they  study  that  theory  less  earnestly,  with  a  mind  less  free 
from  the  disturbance  of  interest  and  ambition,  or  in  any 
way  less  successfully,  whose  actuating  principle  is  the  love 
of  their  neighbor,  while  they  are  raised  by  their  spiritual 
life  above  the  selfish  motives  which  are  the  great  obsta- 
cles to  the  attainment  and  reception  of  political  truth  ? 
Docs  political  pro.gress  depend  upon  action?  Political 
action  requires  a  fixed  aim,  a  cool  head,  and  a  firm  hand. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  HISTORICAL  PROGRESS.         153 

And  why  should  not  these  be  found  for  the  future,  as 
throughout  past  history  they  have  been  found,  in  states- 
men whose  objects  are  disinterested,  and  whose  treasure 
is  not  here  ?  Desperate  anxiety  for  the  issue  is  not  nec- 
essary, or  even  conducive  to  success.  A  man  might  play 
a  match  at  chess  more  eagerly,  but  he  would  not  play  it 
better,  if  his  life  were  staked  on  the  game.  It  was  not 
supposed  that  Tell's  aim  would  be  steadier  when  the  ap- 
ple was  placed  on  the  head  of  his  child. 

We  have  been  told  that  Christianity  almost  stifled  the 
political  genius  of  Cromwell.  "Almost"  is  a  saving 
word.  The  greatest  statesman,  perhaps,  that  the  world 
ever  saw,  and  the  one  who  most  largely  contributed  to 
the  greatness  of  his  country,  even  in  the  most  vulgar  and 
material  sense,  not  only  was  a  Christian,  but  drew  from 
Christianity,  though  tainted  in  his  case  with  Judaism, 
every  principle,  every  idea,  every  expression  of  his  pub- 
lic life. 

If  it  is  philanthropic  enterprise  that  is  to  regenerate 
society,  with  this,  again,  Christianity  has,  to  say  the  least, 
no  inherent  tendency  to  interfere.  I  ventured  to  chal- 
lenge the  Positivists,  who  condemn  the  Christian  view  of 
the  world  for  giving  the  negro  race  no  part  in  the  histor- 
ical development  of  humanity,  to  show  what  part  in  the 
historical  development  of  humanity  these  races  had  real- 
ly played.  It  is  Christianity  alone,  I  submit,  which  as- 
signs them  a  place  in  history,  by  making  them  the  sub- 
jects of  those  great  missionary  and  philanthropic  enter- 
prises which  form  so  important  a  part  of  the  life  of  Chris- 
tendom. As  the  subjects  of  such  enterprises,  they  do 
indeed  contribute  to  the  development  of  humanity  by 

G2 


15-1  ON   SOME   SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

developing  tlie  religious  sympathies  and  affections.  Pos- 
itive Science  requires  that  these  races,  like  the  rest, 
should  pass,  by  a  spontaneous  movement,  from  Fetich- 
ism  into  Polytheism,  and  so,  through  Monotheism,  into 
Atheism,  with  the  corresponding  series  of  social  and 
political  phases.  Christianit}'-,  disregarding  Positive  Sci- 
ence, sets  to  work  to  turn  them  into  civilized  Christians. 

An  eminent  writer,  before  mentioned,  thinks  he  has 
contravened  Christianity  in  saying  that  now,  having 
ceased  to  be  a  Christian,  he  loves  with  a  deliberate  love 
the  world  and  the  things  of  the  world.  So  he  did  when, 
being  a  Christian,  he  went  as  a  missionary  to  the  East. 
To  love  the  world,  it  is  not  necessary  to  think  there  is 
no  evil  in  the  world.  On  the  contrar}'',  it  is  the  strong 
sense  of  the  evil  existing  in  the  world  that,  by  exciting 
the  desire  to  remove  it,  has  led  to  all  the  noble  enter- 
prises of  history.  Neither  need  the  conviction,  however 
deep,  that  the  world  is  transitory,  diminish  the  desire  to 
labor  for  its  good,  if  the  good  done  is  to  be  not  transito- 
ry, but  eternal.  We  are  told  that  the  social  activity  of 
Christians  must  be  paralyzed  by  the  views  which  are 
alleged  to  be  a  part  of  Christianity  respecting  the  con- 
stant imminence  of  the  Last  Day.  Why,  then,  is  not  all 
social  activity  paralyzed  by  the  constant  imminence  of 
death  ? 

Again,  it  is  insinuated  that  the  progress  of  enlightened 
views  respecting  the  duties  of  nations  toward  each  other 
must  be  retarded  by  the  dark  lust  of  conquest  which  is 
inspired  by  the  popular  religion,  with  its  gloomy  worship 
of  the  God  of  Battles.  I  am  unable  to  discern  any  his- 
torical foundation  for  this  notion.     Christianity  is  not 


THE  DOCTKINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         155 

committed  to  tho  conduct  of  tlie  State  Priests  who  sang 
Te  Deiims  for  the  successful  rapine  of  Louis  XIV.  —  a 
rapine  which,  it  may  be  remarlied  by  the  way,  was  at 
least  equaled  when  the  last  restraints  of  religion  had 
been  removed  by  the  Atheist  emperor  who  afterward  sat 
on  the  same  throne;  neither  is  Christianity  committed 
to  the  excesses  of  fanatical  sectaries  who  took  the  Old 
Testament  for  their  Gospel  instead  of  the  New.  The 
uncritical  Puritan  could  not  so  clearly  see  what  we  by 
the  light  of  historical  criticism  most  clearly  see,  that  the 
Jews  were  not  a  miracle,  but  a  nation ;  and  that,  like  all 
other  nations,  they  had  their  primitive  epoch  of  conquest 
and  of  narrow  nationality,  with  moral  views  correspond- 
ingly narrow ;  though  the  whole  of  this  natural  history 
of  the  Jewish  race  was  instinct  with,  and,  as  it  were, 
transmuted  by,  a  moral  and  religious  spirit,  to  which  it 
is  idle  to  say  a  parallel  can  be  found  in  the  history  of 
any  other  nation.  The  character  of  David,  for  example, 
by  its  beauty,  its  chivalry,  and  its  childlike  and  passion- 
ate devotion,  has  sunk  deep  into  the  affections  of  human- 
ity, and  justified  the  sentence  that  he  was  a  man  after 
God's  own  heart ;  but  he  could  not  be  expected,  any 
more  than  a  prince  of  any  other  primitive  nation,  to  an- 
ticipate modern  enlightenment  and  humanity  by  observ- 
ing the  laws  of  civilized  war,  and  giving  quarter  to  the 
garrison  and  inhabitants  of  a  conquered  town. 

This  error  of  the  Puritans,  however,  after  all,  has  not 
left  so  very  deep  a  stain  on  history.  They  were  not  so 
very  ignorant  of  the  real  relations  between  the  Okl  Tes- 
tament and  the  New.  The  notion  of  their  having  re- 
garded their  enemies  as  Canaanites,  and  smitten  them 


15G  ox  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OP 

Lip  and  thigh,  is  mainly  due  to  the  imagination  of  loose 
historical  writers,  Ko  civil  war  in  history  had  ever  been 
conducted  with  half  so  much  humanity  or  with  half  so 
much  self-restraint  as  that  which  they  conducted  in  the 
spirit  of  their  mixed  Hebrew  and  Christian  religion. 
Fanciful  or  cynical  writers  may  picture  Cromwell  as  feel- 
ing a  stern  satisfaction  at  the  carnage  of  Drogheda  and 
Wexford  ;  but  Cromwell's  own  dispatches  excuse  it  on 
the  ground  that  it  would  save  more  blood  in  the  end. 
You  have  only  to  turn  to  the  civil  war  of  the  French 
Revolution  —  carried  on,  as  it  was,  in  the  meridian  light 
of  modern  civilization,  and  with  an  entire  freedom  from 
superstitious  influences  —  to  know  that  even  the  stern 
spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  has  not  been  the  most  cruel 
power  in  history.  There  has  been,  in  truth,  a  good  deal 
of  exaggeration,  and  even  some  cant  upon  this  subject. 
Men  who  weep  over  the  blood  which  was  shed  by  Jew- 
ish hands  in  the  name  of  morality  are  not  indisposed,  if 
we  may  judge  by  their  historical  sympathies,  to  take 
pretty  strong  measures  for  an  idea.  They  can  embrace, 
with  something  like  rapture,  the  butcherly  vagrancy 
laws  of  a  Tudor  King,  his  brutal  uxoricides,  his  persecu- 
tions, his  judicial  murders  perpetrated  on  blameless  and 
illustrious  men,  because  he  belongs  to  a  class  of  violent 
and  unscrupulous  characters  in  history  whom  their  school 
arc  pleased  to  style  heroes,  I  sec  that,  according  to  a 
kindred  school  of  philosophers,  Titus  performed  an  un- 
avoidable duty  in  exterminating  the  Jews  for  rebelling 
against  the  idea  of  Imperialism,  which  they  could  scarce- 
ly,  without  a  miracle,  be  expected  to  apprehend,  Cajsar 
is  becoming  an  object  of  adoration  evidently  as  a  sup- 


THE   DOCTEINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         157 

posed  type  of  certain  great  qualities  in  which  the  Chris- 
tian type  is  supposed  to  be  wanting.  lie  stands  as  one 
of  the  great  historical  Saints  of  the  Comtist  Calendar,  a 
month  being  called  after  his  name.  Yet  this  beneficent 
demigod  put  to  the  sword  a  million  of  Gauls,  and  sold 
another  million  into  slavery,  partly  in  the  spirit  of  Ro- 
man conquest,  but  principally  to  create  for  himself  a  mil- 
itary reputation. 

Then  it  is  intimated  that  the  political  economy  of 
Christianity  is  bad,  and  that  it  has  interfered  with  the 
enjoyment,  and  therefore  with  the  production  of  wealth. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Christianity,  so  far  as  it  has 
had  an  influence  in  history,  has  always  tended  to  the  em- 
ployment of  productive  rather  than  of  unproductive  la- 
bor, and  to  the  promotion  of  art  rather  than  of  luxury. 
But  these  are  not  yet  alleged  to  be  economical  evils. 
Wealth  has  been  just  as  much  enjoyed,  and  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth  just  as  much  stimulated,  by  the  building 
of  splendid  churches,  by  the  employment  of  great  artists, 
and  by  a  munificent  expenditure  for  the  common  bene- 
fit, as  by  the  indulgence  of  personal  luxury  and  pride. 
It  is  in  Christian  states,  in  states  really  Christian,  that 
Commerce  has  appeared  in  its  most  energetic  and  pros- 
perous, as  well  as  in  its  noblest  form ;  the  greatest  mari- 
time discoveries  have  been  made  under  the  banner  of 
the  Cross  j  and  he  who  says  that  the  life  of  Gresham  or 
Columbus  was  alien  to  Christianit}'-,  says  what  is  histor- 
ically absurd.  Capital  and  credit  arc  the  life  of  com- 
mercial enterprise.  The  Gospel  inculcates  the  self-denial 
which  is  necessary  to  the  accumulation  of  cajoital ;  and, 
to  say  the  least,  it  does  not  discourage  the  honesty  which 


158  ox  SOME  SUPPOSED   CONSEQUENCES  OF 

is  the  foundation  of  credit.  Ilonest  labor  and  activity 
in  business  will  hardly  be  said  to  be  condemned  by  St. 
Paul;  and  if  the  anxious  and  covetous  overstraining  of 
labor  is  opposed  to  Christianity,  it  is  equally  opposed  to 
economical  wisdom.  Of  course  the  first  authors  of  Chris- 
tianity did  not  teach  political  economy  before  its  hour. 
They  took  these,  like  the  other  political  and  social  ar- 
rangements of  the  world,  as  they  found  them,  and  re- 
lieved poverty  in  the  way  in  which  it  was  then  relieved. 
The  science  of  Political  Economy,  since  it  left  the  hands 
of  its  great  founder,  has  fallen  to  a  great  extent  into  the 
hands  of  men  of  less  comprehensive  minds,  under  whose 
treatment  it  has  gone  near  to  erecting  hardness  of  heart 
into  a  social  virtue.  No  doubt  there  would  speedily  be 
a  divorce  between  Christianity  and  the  progress  of  such 
a'  science  as  this.  But  this  is  not  the  science  of  Adam 
Smith.  Adam  Smith  understood  the  value,  moral  as 
well  as  material,  of  property,  but  he  also  understood  the 
relative  value  of  property  and  allection. 

If  the  community  of  goods  among  the  early  Christians 
is  cited  as  a  proof  that  Christianity  must  be  opposed  to 
economical  progress,  the  answer  is,  that  Christianity  has 
never  erected,  or  tended  to  erect,  this  natural  expression 
of  new-born  love  and  zeal  into  a  normal  condition  of  so- 
ciety. Whenever  a  great  religious  movement  has  taken 
place  in  history,  the  spirit  of  humanity  has  beaten  in  this 
way  against  its  earthly  bars,  and  struggled  to  realize  at 
once  that  which  can  not  be  realized  within  any  calcula- 
ble time,  if  it  is  destined  ever  to  be  realized  here.  Chris- 
tian philosophers  have  pronounced  the  judgment  of  ra- 
tional Christianity  on  Socialism  in  no  ambiguous  terras. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.         159 

Yet  surely  political  economists  are  too  well  satisfied  with 
their  science  if  they  feel  confident  that  its  laws,  or  sup- 
posed laws,  have  yet  been  harmonized  with  a  sound  so- 
cial morality,  and  with  the  rational  aspirations  of  social 
man.  Surely  they  must  see  farther  into  the  future  course 
of  history  than  any  one  else  can  see,  if  they  are  able  to 
assure  us  that  the  social  motives  to  industry  can  never 
prevail  over  the  personal  motives,  or  even  that  the  ar- 
rangements in  which  all  reasonable  men  at  present  ac- 
quiesce are  certainly  nearer  than  those  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity to  the  ultimate  social  ideal. 

The  Christian  character  has  of  course  been  treated  of 
here  in  its  moral  and  social  aspect  alone,  because  in  that 
character  alone  it  is  manifested  in  historj^,  and  brought 
into  direct  relations  with  historical  progress.  But  it  is 
inconceivable  that  the  Love  of  God  should  ever  conflict 
with  the  Love  of  our  Neighbor.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
the  one  should  ever  fail  to  be  supported  and  intensified 
by  the  other.  The  Comtists  may  preserve  their  love  of 
Humanity  in  all  its  fervor;  they  will  find  it  equally  fer- 
vent in  those  who  add  to  it  the  love  of  God. 

It  has  been  objected  that  Christianity,  from  the  mere 
fact  of  its  being  an  historical  religion,  opposes  progress 
by  compelling  the  world  always  to  look  backward.  I 
scarcely  apprehend  the  force  of  this  objection,  though 
those  who  make  it  evidently  feel  it  to  be  of  great  force. 
If  a  type  of  character  was  to  be  set  up  for  the  imitation 
of  mankind,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  set  up  at 
some  point  in  history,  and  that  the  eye  of  humanity 
should  always  be  turned  to  that  point,  wherever  it  might 
be.     But  the  fixity  of  the  point  iu  history  at  which  the 


160  ON  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

guiding  liglit  was  revealed  no  more  interferes  with  his- 
torical progress  than  the  fixity  of  the  pole-star  interferes 
with  the  progress  of  a  ship. 

There  is,  indeed,  another  objection,  of  a  much  graver 
kind,  to  the  sufficiency  of  a  merely  historical  religion. 
Historical  evidence,  being  the  evidence  of  witnesses  who 
are  dead,  and  who  may  possibly,  however  improbably, 
have  been  mistaken,  can  not  rise  beyond  a  high  proba- 
bility. It  can  not  amount  to  such  absolute  certainty  as 
we  derive  from  the  evidence  of  our  senses,  or  from  that 
of  our  moral  perceptions.  And  probability,  however 
high,  though  a  sufficient  ground  for  our  practical  de- 
cisions, is  not  a  sufficient  ground  for  our  religious  faith 
and  feelings.  Butler  has  imjDorted  the  rules  of  worldly 
prudence  into  a  sphere  where  they  have  no  place.  We 
may  wisely  stake  our  worldly  interests  on  a  probable,  or 
even,  if  the  prize  be  great,  on  a  merely  possible  event, 
but  we  can  not  worship  and  commune  with  a  Being  on  a 
probability  even  of  ten  thousand  to  one  that  he  is  God. 

But  here  again  history,  taking  a  broad  view  of  the 
facts,  finds  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  question  whether 
Christendom  is  likely  to  perish  under  mere  historical  ob- 
jections. In  all  that  has  really  created  and  sustained 
Christendom  there  is  nothing  which  rests  on  historical 
evidence  alone.  That  which  has  created  and  sustained 
Christendom  has  been  the  Christian  idea  of  God  as  the 
Father  of  all,  the  spiritual  life  supported  by  that  idea,  the 
Character  of  Christ  always  present  as  the  object  of  Chris- 
tian affiiction  and  the  model  for  Christian  imitation,  and 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
The  fact  of  the  Resurrection  itself,  like  the  immortality 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  HISTORICAL   PROGRESS.        161 

of  tliG  soul  of  which  it  is  the  pledge,  rests  on  other  than 
mere  historical  evidence.  It  rests  in  part  on  the  doctrine, 
cognizable  by  reason,  independently  of  historical  evidence, 
that,  from  the  intimate  connection  between  death  and  sin, 
a  perfectly  sinless  nature,  such  as  that  of  Him  who  over- 
came the  grave,  could  not  be  holden  of  death.^" 

lias  no  great  crisis,  then,  arrived  in  the  history  of 
Christendom  ?  Certainly  a  great  crisis  has  arrived,  and 
one  which  bids  fair  soon  to  merge  small  doubts  and  diffi- 
culties in  mighty  events.  But  it  is  not  so  clear  that  this 
crisis  is  an  unhappy  one.  We  may  be  sure  it  is  one 
which  has  been  long  in  preparation.  Of  the  great  events 
of  history  it  may  be  said  with  more  truth,  or  at  least  with 
more  practical  import,  than  it  was  said  by  Montaigne  of 
death,  "  Every  day  they  approach,  the  last  day  they  ar- 
rive." We  may  be  sure  also  that  what  is  coming  will  be 
what  the  world  has  deserved ;  and  the  world  has  of  late 
been  a  scene  of  religious,  moral,  political,  and  intellectual 
effort,  often  perhaps  misguided  and  often  equivocal,  but 
still  effort,  which  has  at  least  deserved  a  different  meed 
from  that  due  to  lethargy  and  despair.  Finally,  we  may 
be  sure  that  good  will  assert  that  indestructible  quality 
which  history  recognizes  in  it,  and  pass  from  the  old  state 
of  things  entire  in  substance,  though  perhaps  changed  in 
form,  into  the  new. 

*  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  the  theory  respecting  the  formation  of 
character  by  habit,  the  laws  of  which  arc  analogous  to  the  laws  of  matter, 
is  equally  applicable  to  the  formation  of  vice  and  to  the  formation  of  vir- 
tue. But  is  not  virtue  rather  a  gradual  emancipation  of  the  reason  and 
conscience,  the  sovereign  powers  of  the  soul,  iVom  every  thing  in  the  shape 
of  motive  that  can  afl'cct  them  in  a  mechanical  manner,  and  enslave  them 
to  the  laws  of  matter,  and  to  the  material  accident,  death? 


162  ON  SOME  SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES  OF 

The  members  of  the  divided  churches  have  prayed  for 
their  reunion  through  the  conversion  of  all  to  the  peculiar 
doctrines  of  one.  It  seems  as  though  the  praj'cr  were 
now  about  to  be  granted  in  a  less  miraculous  manner  by 
the  simple  removal,  througb  concurrent  moral  and  po- 
litical causes,  of  the  grand  cause  of  division  in  Christen- 
dom. If  historical  symptoms  are  to  be  trusted,  the  long 
death-agony  of  three  centuries  is  about  to  terminate,  and 
within  no  very  long  period  the  Papacy  will  cease  to  ex- 
ist. The  chief  historical  conditions  of  its  existence  have 
expired,  or  are  rapidly  expiring.  In  the  supremacy  of 
human  authority  over  reason  in  the  mind  of  man  the 
power  of  Rome  had  its  origin  and  being,  and  the  suprem- 
acy of  reason  over  human  authority  in  the  mind  of  man 
is  now  decisive  and  complete.  The  rationalistic  theories 
of  recent  advocates  of  the  Papacy,  such  as  De  Maistre  and 
Dr.  Newman,  arc  suicidal  concessions  to  the  spirit  of  a 
changed  world.  The  loss  of  moral  allegiance,  even  in 
countries  nominally  Papal,  has  for  some  time  past  been 
continuous  and  rapid,  and  we  ourselves  well  know  the 
source  whence  the  small,  precarious,  and  equivocal  acces- 
sions of  strength  have  been  derived.  The  great  revolt  of 
the  Reformation  was  arrested  in  its  progress  over  Europe 
partly  by  accidents  of  national  temperament  and  com- 
parative mental  cultivation,  partly  and  principally  by  the 
persecuting  pow€r  of  the  great  Catholic  monarchies,  which 
conspired  to  preserve  the  Papacy  as  the  keystone  of  des- 
potism, and,  by  balancing  each  other,  gave  it  a  fixctitious 
independence,  of  which  the  suspension  of  Italian  nation- 
ality was  also  a  necessary  condition.  The  Catholic  mon- 
archies arc  dead  or  dying.     A  Voltairian  dynasty,  the 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF  HISTORICAL  PROGRESS.         163 

offspring  of  the  French  Ecvolation,  sits  on  the  throne  of 
Charles  IX.  The  successors  of  Philip  II.  have  suppressed 
monasteries  and  allied  themselves  with  the  liberal  house 
of  Orleans.  The  heir  of  Ferdinand  11,  has  been  compell- 
ed to  recognize  Protestantism  and  to  grant  a  Constitution 
to  the  Austrian  Empire.  The  balance  of  power  between 
France,  Spain,  and  Austria  having  been  destroyed,  the 
nominal  bead  of  Christendom  has  sunk  to  a  puppet  of 
French  diplomacy,  degraded  to  the  dust  by  the  sinister- 
and  contemptuous  support  which  prolongs  the  existence 
of  his  mutilated  power.  The  revival  of  Italian  nation- 
ality seems  now  to  be  assured.  It  is  vain  to  think  that 
the  Primate  of  an  Italian  kingdom  can  be  the  Father  of 
Christendom.  It  is  equally  vain  to  think  that  the  na- 
tional government  of  Italy  can  suffer  an  independent  po- 
tentate, elected  by  a  European  conclave,  to  exist  at  its 
side.  It  is  vain  to  talk  of  dividing  the  temporal  from  the 
spiritual  power.  To  command  the  soul  is  to  command 
the  man.  It  was  for  the  Suzerainty  of  Europe,  and  for 
nothing  less,  that  the  Papacy  and  the  Grermanic  Empire 
fought,  the  one  with  the  arms  of  force,  the  other  with  the 
arms  of  superstition.  We  might  share  the  dream  of  a 
purely  spiritual  Papacy  if  we  did  not  know  too  well  that 
the  Papal  power,  to  whatever  extent  it  may  have  been 
exercised  for  spiritual  ends,  was  the  creature  of  political 
accidents  and  political  influences,  aided  by  the  instru- 
ments, not  spiritual,  though  not  strictly  material,  of  relig- 
ious intimidation  and  intrigue.  The  Papacy  will  perish, 
and  in  it  will  perish  the  great  obstacle  to  the  reconcilia- 
tion and  reunion  of  Christendom.  Nor  will  it  perish 
alone.     It  will  draw  down  with  it  in  its  fall,  sooner  or 


164  ox   SOME   SUPPOSED  CONSEQUENCES,  ETC. 

later,  all  those  causes  of  division  wliicli  have  subsisted 
by  mere  antagonism  to  it,  and  many  which  it  has  kept 
alive  by  its  direct,  though  unrecognized  inlluenee  over 
the  rest  of  the  ecclesiastical  ^Yorld.  Then,  if  Christianity 
be  true,  there  may,  so  far  as  the  outward  arrangements  of 
the  w^orld  are  concerned,  once  more  arise  a  Christendom, 
vstripped  indeed  of  much  that  is  essential  to  religion  in 
/^■eyes  of  polemical  theologians,  but  as  united,  grand, 
and  powerful,  as  capable  of  pervading  with  its  spirit  the 
whole  frame  of  society,  as  fruitful  of  religious  art  and  all 
other  manifestations  of  religious  life,  as  Christendom  was 
before  the  great  schism,  but  resting  on  the  adamantine 
basis  of  free  conviction,  instead  of  the  sandy  foundation 
of  human  authority  and  tradition  supported  by  political 
power.  Those  who  imagine  that  such  a  consummation, 
if  it  come,  must  come  with  terrible  convulsions  and  dis- 
tress, do  not  consider  that  a  great  part  of  educated  Europe 
has,  in  fact,  for  some  time  been  united,  and  guided  in  the 
conduct  of  life,  and  in  all  international  and  general  rela- 
tions, by  a  common  Christianity.  The  world,  as  usual, 
has  anticipated  the  results  of  speculation  by  tacitly  solv- 
ing a  great  practical  problem  for  itself;  and  it  has  found 
that  the  brightness  of  the  sunbeam  resides  in  the  sun- 
beam, not  in  the  motes,  and  that  the  crystal  floor  of 
Heaven  is  not  as  unstable  as  water  because  it  is  as  clear. 


THE  MORAL  FREEDOM  OF  MAN. 


A  Letter  to  the  "■Daily  JSTeics"  of  JVbvember  20,  ISGl,  de- 
fendinrj  the  principles  maintained  in  the  foregoing  Lec- 
tures against  the  criticisms  of  an  article  in  the  "TFes^- 
vninster  Hevieio'''  of  October  in  the  same  year^  entitled 
'■'■Mr.  Goldioin  Smith  on  the  Stiody  of  History.'''' 


TO   THE   EDITOK    OF   TUE  "  DAILY   KE"\VS. 

Sir, — You  were  so  good  as  to  allow  me  the  other  day  to 
use  your  columns  for  the  purpose  of  defending  my  conduct 
as  a  professor  against  the  "  Westminster  Review."*  I  will 
now  ask  your  permission  to  use  them  for  the  more  agreea- 
ble purpose  of  saying  a  few  words  on  the  question  betAveen 
the  view  of  history  and  humanity  advocated  in  ray  Lec- 
tures, and  those  advocated  by  the  Reviewer.  I  do  not  con- 
cur in  the  assumption  that  the  daily  press  is  not  a  fit  organ 
for  such  discussions.  The  daily  press  has  long  since  been 
practically  accejited  by  the  community  as  a  fit  organ  for  the 
discussion  of  every  thing  that  concerns  and  interests  man  ; 
and  it  has  this  great  advantage,  that  every  one  who  writes 
in  it  must  at  least  try  to  make  himself  intelligible,  a  disci- 
pline which  many  writers  of  great  books  Avould  bo  all  the 
better  for  having  undergone.  The  notion  that  calmness, 
gravity,  and  moderation  in  the  treatment  of  great  subjects 

*  The  letter  here  alluded  to,  as  it  related  merely  to  my  pcrsoual  con- 
duct and  character,  is  not  reprinted. 


166  THE  MORAL  FREEDOM   OF  MAN. 

are  confiued  to  quarterly  journals,  is  not,  I  venture  to  think, 
agreeable  to  exjDerience, 

So  far  as  I  may  have  occasion  to  allude  to  the  "  Westmin- 
ster Review,"  I  shall  treat  it,  of  course,  merely  as  the  expo- 
nent of  certain  opinions,  of  Avhich  it  is  the  organ,  not  as  a 
criticism  of  my  own  work. 

No  jiart  of  the  ])hilosoi)hy  of  history  is  more  important 
than  that  which  teaches  us  to  study  the  history  of  opinion, 
and  to  separate,  in  each  theory  of  man  and  of  the  world, 
that  Avhich  demands  our  consideration  as  the  result  of  pure 
thought  from  that  which  may  be  set  aside  as  the  mere  ex- 
pression of  feeling  produced  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
time. 

Thrice,  at  least,  since  man  became  conscious,  or  i")artly 
conscious,  of  his  spiritual  nature,  and  of  the  dignity  of  his 
being,  a  sort  of  despondency,  the  result  in  pai;t  of  political 
disaster,  has  come  over  the  moral  world.  Such  a  despond- 
ency followed  on  the  fall  of  that  narrow  but  vigorous  polit- 
ical life,  compounded  of  patriotism  and  stoicism,  which  was 
embodied  in  the  Roman  republic.  It  followed  on  the  tre- 
mendous religious  wars  and  revolutions  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.  It  has  followed  on  the  terrible,  and, 
to  a  great  extent,  fruitless  revolutionary  struggles  tln-ough 
which  Europe  has  just  passed.  The  abandonment  of  those 
social  aspirations  of  man  which  are  so  intimately  connected 
with  his  spiritual  hopes  gave  birth  in  the  first  instance  to 
Ca^sarism,  in  the  second  instance  to  the  absolutism  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  was  typified  by  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, and  erected  into  a  Chinese  Utopia  by  Voltaire.  In 
the  present  instance  it  has  given  birth  to  Imperialism,  which 
has  naturally  triumphed  most  signally  in  the  country  where 
the  decay  of  religion,  as  well  as  the  political  lassitude  arising 
from  abortive  revolution,  is  most  complete.     The  loss  of  re- 


THE   MORAL  FREEDOM   OF   MAN.  167 

ligious  faith  has  in  each  of  the  three  instances  been  attended 
by  the  prevalence  of  a  materiaUstic  superstition.  The  Ro- 
man materiahst  was  the  slave  of  astrologers :  the  last  cen- 
tury hung  on  the  lips  of  Cagliostro  and  his  brother  quacks ; 
and  we  fill  the  void  of  spiritual  life  with  mesmerism  and 
spirit-rapping. 

At  the  same  time,  the  religious  life  of  the  present  age  is 
attacked  by  a  powerful  influence  of  a  difierent  kind.  The 
pressure  of  false  authority,  reigning  in  old  dogmatic  estab- 
lishments, has  kept  religion  in  an  irrational  state,  as  any  man 
may  easily  convince  himself  by  comparing  the  identity  of 
the  Christian  character  and  life  in  all  communions  with  the 
differences  of  their  dogmatic  creeds,  and  the  vital  impor- 
tance attached  by  each  communion  to  its  own.  Meantime 
science,  having  achieved  her  emanciiDation  from  authority, 
has  made  i^rodigious  pi'ogress,  and  acquired  vast  influence 
over  the  life  of  man.  Thus  religion  in  her  weakness  and 
her  fetters  is  brought  into  contact  and  into  contrast  with 
science  in  her  strength  and  freedom;  and  no  wonder  that 
to  exclusively  scientific  minds  the  domain  of  sj^irit  should 
seem  the  last  strong-hold  of  unreason,  which  it  will  be  the 
crowning  triumph  of  science  to  subdue.  Great  men  of  sci- 
ence, indeed,  like  all  great  men,  know  the  limits  of  their  own 
sphere.  But  the  lesser  men  of  science,  Avho,  to  tell  the  plain 
truth,  have  often  no  more  largeness  of  mind  or  breadth  of 
cultivation  than  an  ingenious  mechanic,  grasp  eagerly  at  the 
sceptre  of  the  moral  world. 

Comte,  the  real  though  disclaimed  author  of  the  "  "West- 
minster" philosophy,  was  placed  in  a  position  which  exposed 
him  to  all  these  influences  in  the  highest  degree.  As  a 
Frenchman,  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  political  despair.  He 
saw  religion  only  in  the  aspect  of  French  ultramontanism, 
and  had  no  alternative  before  him  but  that  of  French  skep- 


1G8  THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

ticism,  Avliicli  he  pardonably  preferred.  Rational  religion 
lie  luid  never  beheld.  Ills  cultivation  had  evidently  been 
almost  exclusively  scientific,  and  his  course  of  Positive  Phi- 
losophy is  a  perfect  representation  of  the  tendencies  of  ex- 
clusively scientific  minds  -when  unprovided  Avith  a  rational 
theory  of  the  moral  M'orld  and  a  rational  religion.  He  goes 
through  the  physical  sciences ;  arrives  at  that  -which  is  be- 
yond science  ;  and,  impatient  of  the  limit  set  to  his  course, 
tries  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  by  laying  it  down,  dogmatically 
and  without  proof,  that  the  moral — or,  as  he  chose  to  call  it, 
the  sociolggical-^world  differs  from  the  jshysical  only  in  the 
greater  complexity  of  its  phenomena,  and  the  greater  difii- 
culty,  consequent  on  that  complexity,  of  resolving  its  phe- 
[nomena  into  their  necessary  laws. 

There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  Comte,  toward  the 
end  of  his  life,  by  which  time  he  had  been  abandoned  by 
Mr.  Mill  and  all  his  rational  disciples,  Avas  insane.  Nor  is  it 
difficult  to  detect  the  source  of  his  insanity.  It  was  egotism, 
uncontrolled  by  the  thought  of  a  higher  power,  and,  in  its 
morbid  irritation,  unsoothed  by  the  influence  of  religion. 
The  passage  in  Avhich  lie  says  that  having  at  first  been  only 
an  Aristotle,  he,  through  his  afleclion  for  a  female  friend, 
became  also  a  St.  Paul,  has  been  often  quoted.  But  it  is 
not  a  more  rampant  display  of  egotism  than  the  passage  at 
the  beginning  of  his  "Catechism,"  in  which  he  depicts  the 
"  memorable  conclusion"  of  his  course  of  lectures  as  the 
opening  of  a  new  era,  and  shows  how  the  great  thinlcers  who 
had  preceded  him  in  history  were  precursors  of  himself 

In  his  later  phase,  having  become  a  St.  Paul,  he  proceeded 
to  found  a  new  religion,  Avhicli  is  simply  an  insane  parody  of 
the  Poman  Catholicism  before  his  eyes,  set  a  mystic  morality 
above  science,  and  turned  the  "  Positive  Philosophy"  upside 
down.     "Every  one,"  says  the  "Westminster,"  "who  has 


THE  MORAL  FEEEDOM   OF   MAX.  169 

read  any  thing  of  Comte's  Avorks,  especially  the  later,  knows 
that  it  is  the  very  foundation  of  his  method  to  give  the  pre- 
dominance to  the  moral  faculties."  Those  who  having,  per- 
liaps,  just  read  Comte,  fancy  that  they  alone  have  read  him, 
will  lind,  on  farther  reference,  that  the  qualifying  words 
"  especially  the  later"  are  by  no  means  superfluous. 

All  honor  to  Comte,  however,  for  this — that  he  was  not  a 
mere  reckless  assailant  of  the  convictions  by  which  the 
Avorld  around  hira  lived.  He  produced,  at  the  cost,  no 
doubt,  of  mucli  conscientious  labor  and  earnest  thought, 
what  he  believed  to  be  a  new  faith,  and  tendered  it  to  man- 
kind as  a  substitute  for  that  which  he  took  away.  That  the 
view  of  humanity  which  he  adopted  was  ignoble  and  absurd 
was  his  misfortune,  as  the  victim  of  unhappy  influences,  far 
more  than  his  fault.  If  it  were  not  so  clear  that  he  was  de- 
ranged at  the  time  when  he  invented  his  new  religion,  he 
might  well  be  said  to  have  done  Christendom  a  great  serv- 
ice by  trying,  with  decisive  result,  the  experiment  of  satis- 
fying man's  religious  instincts  by  a  creed  and  church  other 
than  the  Christian,  As  it  is,  this  momentous  task  is  left 
for  the  "  Westminster,"  which,  indeed,  seems  to  have  made 
great  progress  toward  fulfilling  it ;  for  whereas  in  January 
we  were  exhorted,  with  much  solemn  pathos,  to  brace  np 
our  courage  to  the  point  of  going  forth  into  the  void  in 
search  of  a  new  religion,  we  are  now  confidently  invited  to 
leave  Christianity,  and  "  stand  witli  the  '  Westminster'  on 
solid  ground." 

In  England,  Comte  has  drawn  liis  most  distinguished  dis- 
ciples from  the  University  of  Oxford.  When  the  Univer- 
sity awoke  froni  the  long  torpor  of  the  last  century,  a  vio- 
lent ecclesiastical  movement  set  in,  which  naturally  took  a 
High-Church  direction,  and,  as  every  one  knows,  threw 
many  of  our  best  and  most  gifted  members  into  tlie  Church 

II 


170  THE   ilORAL   FREEDOM   OF   :MAX. 

of  Rome.  The  recoil  after  that  movement  staggered  most 
of  us,  and  flung  some  out  of  religion  altogether.  These 
men  fell  in  several  cases  sheer  down  into  Comtism,  and  it 
seems  that  the  University  of  Laud  has  still  a  fair  chance  of 
furnishing  leaders  to  that  persuasion.  But  some  of  them 
appear  to  be  in  an  uncertain  and  transition  state,  "svhich  tliey 
confidently  invite  the  -world  to  accept  as  the  "  solid  ground" 
of  complete  and  final  truth.  At  least  they  vehemently  re- 
pudiate "  atheism,"  and  afiect  the  phrase  "  spiritual."  Do 
they  mean  by  God  merely  a  set  of  scientific  laws?  Do 
they  mean  by  spirit  only  a  substance,  the  phenomena  of 
■which  are  more  "  complex"  than  the  phenomena  of  the  ma- 
terial world  ?  They  proclaim  that  they  are  "  neither  Athe- 
ist, Pantheist,  Positivist,  nor  Materialist."  Do  they,  then, 
believe  in  the  existence  of  a  personal  God?  If  so,  do  they 
suppose  that  only  "  scientific"  relations  exist  between  that 
God  and  the  spirit  of  man?  Have  they  made  up  their 
mind  about  the  immortality  of  the  soul?  All  these  ques- 
tions we  have  a  riglit  to  ask  them  when  tlicy  invite  us  to 
leave  our  present  position  and  "  stand"  with  them  "  on  solid 
ground." 

Generations  at  Oxford  pass  quickly.  "Within  the  brief 
space  of  twenty  years  I  liave  seen  the  Avheel  come  full  cir- 
cle. Wlien  I  was  an  undergraduate,  theology  was  "the 
queen  (and  tyrant)  of  the  sciences."  Xow  it  is  an  "  extinct 
science."  Then,  the  questions  between  the  Vulcanian  and 
Neptunian  theories  in  geology  were  being  settled  by  refer- 
ence to  tlie  double  Jiature  of  a  sacrament.  Now,  we  are 
settling  all  the  questions  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  world 
by  reference  to  the  methods  of  physical  science.  In  those 
days,  scientific  experience  Avas  set  at  nauglit,  and  we  were 
told  that  though  in  science  the  earth  miglit  go  round  the 
sun,  in  theology  the  sun  went  round  the  earth.     Now,  mor- 


THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN.  171 

al  experience  is  set  at  naught,  and  we  are  told  tliat,  morally, , 
we  may  know  action  to  be  free,  but  that  science  pronounces 
it  to  be  bound  by  the  law  of  causation.  The  sneers  Avhich 
are  at  present  directed  against  free-will  are  the  exact  coun- 
terpart, and  the  just  retribution,  of  the  sneers  which  Avere 
formerly  directed  against  induction.  Wc  have  trampled  on 
the  lower  truth,  and  we  pay  the  heavy  penalty  of  producing 
enemies  to  the  highest.  When  science  has  been  fairly  ad- 
mitted to  its  due  place  in  the  University,  its  vengeful  usurp- 
ations will  probably  cease,  and  we  shall  no  longer,  in  this 
way  at  least,  bewilder  and  disturb  the  world. 

One  who  knows  Oxford  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  vio- 
lence of  the  reaction  among  us  has  partly  supplied  the  spir- 
it which  animates  the  "Westminster  Review."  Among 
other  indications,  we  may  recognize  with  pleasure  a  kindly 
feeling  toward  the  University,  and  a  disposition  to  admit 
that,  though  benighted  in  her  general  chai'acter,  yet  in  vir- 
tue of  certain  secondary  influences  of  a  hapi:)y  kind,  such  as 
tlie  study  of  Mill  and  Grote,  she  is  capable  of  producing 
great  men.  We  may  also  perceive,  in  an  element  most  hos- 
tile to  all  that  is  ecclesiastical,  some  traces  of  an  ecclesias- 
tical training-place,  such  as  an  ardent  passion  for  j^ropa- 
gandism,  and  a  tendency  to  flirt  (to  use  an  undignified  ex- 
pression) with  the  half-educated  minds  of  mechanics,  analo- 
gous to  the  ecclesiastical  habit  of  flirting  with  the  intellects 
of  half  educated  women.  Do  we  not  even  see,  in  the  ex- 
traordinary rapidity  with  which  the  "  science"  of  some  of 
these  high  scientific  minds  has  been  acquired,  an  analogy  to*- 
the  religious  phenomenon  of  "  sudden  conversion  ?" 

The  special  violence  of  Oxford  reaction  may  perhaps  bo 
f\iirly  gauged  by  comparing  the  "Westminster"  with  its 
nearest  neighbor  in  philosophy,  the  "  National."  Those 
who  are  farthest  from  bcino:  adherents  of  the  "  National" 


-; 


172  THE   arORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN". 

must  see  tlmt  the  opinions  of  its  cliicf  Avritevs  have  been 
fornicd  calmly  and  deliberately,  not  under  the  influence  of 
a  furious  revulsion  of  feeling.  It  gives  at  least  a  due  place 
to  science  in  its  view  of  things ;  but  it  is  not  science  mad  j 
and  it  treats,  at  all  events,  ■with  philosophic  tenderness  that 
Avhicli  is  at  present  the  life  of  the  world.  When  I  read  vio- 
lent and  contcmi^tuous  invectives  against  "  the  jDopular  re- 
ligion," I  always  suspect  that  the  Avriter  has  not  long 
emerged  from  some  particularly  "  popular"  phase  of  that 
religion,  and  that  his  language  is  affected  for  the  moment 
by  an  angry  recollection  of  the  thraldom  in  which  his  spirit 
has  recently  been  held. 

If  the  "  Westminster"  chooses  to  call  this  attempt  at  in- 
tellectual diagnosis  an  unconscious  contribution  to  "  Sociol- 
ogy," no  one  Avill  have  a  right  to  object,  except  the  few  "svho 
cherish  the  jjurity  of  the  English  tongue.  I  see  that  I  am 
supposed  to  have  unwittingly  subscribed  to  some  new  view 
of  humanity  in  saying  that  the  fall  of  the  Papacy  is  "inevi- 
table," and  that  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  "can  never  return." 
If  my  diagnosis  is  right,  the  influence  of  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances may  fairly  be  pleaded  in  palliation  of  certain 
very  violent  attacks  on  Christianity,  in  case  those  attacks 
should  hereafter  prove  to  have  been  premature.  But  the 
palliation  would  not  extend  to  imgencrous  tactics,  such  as 
the  trick  of  Jesuitically  goading  orthodoxy  to  persecute 
moderate  Liberalism,  which  are  a  mistake  under  any  dis- 
pensation. Voltaire  has  never  been  forgiven  for  stirring  up 
persecution  against  Kousscau. 

The  speculations  of  Mr.  Buckle,  again,  are  evidently  dom- 
inated by  the  influence  of  a  circumstance  which  is  purely 
accidental.  The  reason  why  he  makes  religion  the  demon 
of  history  clearly  is,  that  lie  imagines  religion  to  be  the 
arch-enemy  of  his  divinity — Science.     But  the  slight  ground 


THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN.  173 

which  there  is  for  this  depends  on  the  irrational  condition 
in  which,  as  has  been  before  said,  religion  has  been  kept 
by  false  authority,  embodied  in  state  churches.  The  free 
churches  of  the  United  States  have  necessarily  taken  their 
hue  in  some  measure  from  the  churches  of  Europe,  with 
whose  bigotry  they  are  somewhat  tinged.  Yet  in  tlie 
United  States  there  seems  to  be  scarcely  any  complaint  that 
free  inquiry  in  any  department  is  stifled  or  discouraged  by 
religion.  Even  here,  a  good  deal  of  exaggeration  is  re- 
quired to  make  out  a  serious  case  of  opposition  between  re- 
ligion and  science.  When  Lord  Palmerstou  snubs  the 
Scotch  for  desiring  a  day  of  religious  humiliation  at  the  ap- 
proach of  the  cholera,  instead  of  introducing  improved  drain- 
age, he  is  lauded  by  Mr.  Buckle  as  an  Archangel  of  Light 
rebuking  the  Powers  of  Darkness.  Would  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  have  told  the  L-onsides,  on  the  eve  of  a  battle,  that  if 
they  meant  to  gain  the  victory  they  must  fight  and  not 
pray  ?  And,  after  all,  is  the  Scotch  nation  so  very  marked 
an  instance  of  the  ill  efiects  of  religion  in  destroying  good 
sense  and  preventing  self-exertion  ? 

I  think  I  can  show  Mr.  Buckle  that  Christianity  has  re- 
cently rendered  science  a  most  signal  service,  not  the  first  it 
has  rendered  of  the  kind.  He  will  scarcely  deny  that  tlic 
ethical  doctrine  of  self-sacrifice  is  a  peculiarly,  if  not  an  ex- 
clusively Christian  doctrine,  and  that  it  was  Christianity 
that  first  eftectively  filled  society  with  this  aspiration.  Xow 
he  has  i)laced  before  us,  in  his  last  volume,  a  picture,  evi- 
dently not  imaginary,  but  real,  of  an  intellect  of  first-rale 
power,  drawn  by  natural  ambition  to  the  glittering  prizes 
of  political  and  oratorical  eminence,  but,  in  the  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice,  renouncing  those  prizes,  and  devoting  itself,  for  the 
sake  of  its  kind,  to  the  inquiry  after  scientific  truth.  I  can 
not  help  thinking  that  such  an  instance,  vividly  present  to 


174  THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

his  mind,  ought  to  convince  liim  that,  contravy  to  liis  the- 
ory, moral  excellence  docs  contribute,  as  well  as  intellectual 
greatness,  to  the  scientific  progress  of  the  world. 

If  Mr.  Buckle  has  ever  liad  the  opportunity  of  observing 
the  influence  of  rational  and  healthy  religion  on  the  intellect 
and  character,  he  has  not  thought  it  worth  his  while,  as  a 
philosopher,  to  record  the  results  of  his  observation. 

None  of  us  will  escape  the  influences  of  our  time.  We 
shall  undergo  them,  more  or  less,  in  the  way  of  repulsion  if 
not  of  attraction ;  but  we  may  at  least  try  to  analyze  theni 
and  guard  against  them,  instead  of  courting  their  domina- 
tion, and  surrendering  ourselves  to  their  sway. 

CSuch  a  question  as  that  of  the  free  personality  of  man, 
which  is  the  real  point  at  issue,  is  likely  to  be  solved  by 
each  of  us  for  himself,  and  by  mankind  collectively,  on  prac- 
tical rather  than  philosophical  grounds.  Probably- no  man, 
Avhen  engaged  in  high  and  inspiring  action,  ever  for  a  mo- 
ment doubted  his  moral  freedom,  or  imagined  himself  to  bo 
the  mere  organ  of  a  "  sociological"  law.  And  the  world  is 
now  once  more  entering  upon  a  course  of  action  of  a  high 
and  inspiring  kind.  The  lassitude  Avhich  followed  on  the 
convulsion  of  1848  is  passing  away.  The  emancipation  of 
Italy,  and  the  resolute  but  wise  and  temperate  struggle 
which  Hungary  is  making  for  her  freedom,  have  revived 
the  political  liopes  of  man  ;  and  if  there  are  discouraging 
appearances  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  they  are  qual- 
ified by  the  signal  proofs  of  immense  national  energy  and 
great  faith  in  institutions  which  vast  armaments  of  citizen 
soldiers,  by  their  mere  existence,  undeniably  aftord.  Even 
in  France,  the  land  of  Comte,  l*roudhon,  and  IJonapartism, 
Jules  Simon  has  gone  forth  the  herald  of  a  dift'erent  state 
of  things.  A  greater  object  of  endeavor  than  any  mere  po- 
litical emancipation  or  improvement  bogijis  to  present  itself 


THE   JrORAL   FEEEDOM   OF   MAN,  175 

to  our  view.  Tho  political  supports  of  the  Paj^acy  having 
been  cut  away  by  the  fall  or  desperate  Aveakuess  of  the  old 
Catholic  monarchies,  on  which,  since  the  Reformation,  it  has 
rested,  and  the  power  of  the  Popes  having  (with  deference 
to  M.  Guizot  be  it  said)  long  ceased  to  be  a  spiritual  power, 
the  great  pillars  of  irrational  dogma  and  the  chief  source  of 
schismatical  division  among  the  Christian  churches  are  in  a 
fair  way  of  being  removed ;  and  the  reunion  of  Christendom, 
"which  for  three  centuries  has  been  an  empty  and  hopeless 
prayer,  is  likely  at  last  to  become  a  practicable  aim.  Prob- 
ably it  would  be  a  greater  service  to  humanity,  on  philo- 
sophical as  well  as  on  religious  grounds,  to  contribute  the 
smallest  mite  toward  this  consummation,  than  to  construct 
the  most  jDcrfect  demonstration  of  the  free  personality  of 
man.  As  things  are,  rationalistic  and  fatalistic  reveries 
may  be  laboriously  confuted ;  but  amid  the  energies  and  as- 
pirations of  a  regenerated  Christendom  they  would  sponta- 
neously pass  away. 

The  rational  object  of  discussion  in  this  as  in  other  de- 
partments is  to  produce  practical  conviction,  Names  and 
theoretical  statements  may  take  care  of  themselves.  The 
"Westminster"  says:  "Any  thing  which  tends  to  deny  to 
man  the  fullest  power  to  develop  his  own  faculties,  to  con- 
trol his  own  life,  and  form  his  future,  we  are  ready  to  con- 
demn." If  it  will  adhere  to  this  declaration  in  the  natural 
sense  of  the  words,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said,  except 
that  if  comets  "  formed  their  own  future"  they  would  be 
rather  embarrassing  subjects  of  "science." 

A  student  and  teacher  of  History,  however,  is  compelled 
to  deal  Avith  a  theory  which,  if  true,  Avould  deeply  affect  the 
treatment  of  his  special  subject. 

We  are  in  effect  told  with  great  vehemence  of  language, 
rising,  when  objections  are  oftercd,  to  a  highly  objurgatory 


176  THE   MORAL   TREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

key,  tliat  tlic  free  personality  of  man  is  an  illusion  ;  for  that, 
feel  as  free  as  Ave  may,  our  actions,  both  individual  and  col- 
lective, are  determined  by  a  law,  or  a  set  of  laws,  as  fixed 
as  those  which  determine  the  phenomena  of  physical  agents, 
and  of  which  what  we  call  our  free-will  is  only  the  manifest- 
ation. 

The  answer  is:  This  discovery  is  most  momentous^  if 
true.  Let  the  law,  or  set  of  laws,  be  stated,  and  its  or  their 
existence  demonstrated  by  reference  to  the  facts  of  human 
life  or  history,  and  we  will  accept  them  as  we  accept  any 
other  hypothesis  which  is  distinctly  propounded  and  satis- 
factorily verified.  But  at  present,  not  only  is  there  no  veri- 
fication, there  is  not  even  a  hypothesis  before  us.  Comte,  in- 
deed, put  forward  a  hypothesis — that  of  the  necessary  prog- 
ress of  society  through  the  "Theological,"  "Metaphysical," 
and  "Positive"  states  in  succession.  But  as  the  "Westmin- 
ster" repudiates  the  titles  of  "  Positivist"  and  "  Atheist,"  I 
may  assume  that  it  abandons  Comte's  hypothesis  as  an  ac- 
count of  humanity,  even  if  it  adheres  to  it  as  an  account  of 
the  history  of  science,  Mr.  Mill  has  merely  reproduced 
Comte.  Mr.  Buckle  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  put  forf^nrtl 
any  general  hypothesis,  unless  it  be  that  morality  never  pro- 
motes the  imjirovement  of  the  species,  and  that  religion  al- 
ways retards  it.  His  theory,  again,  would  necessarily  be 
rejected  by  the  "  "Westminster,"  if  that  journal  repudiates 
"Atheism"  in  a  practical  sense.  And  since  it  has  led  him 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  are  no  two  countries  which 
more  closely  resemble  each  other  in  their  condition  than 
Scotland  and  Spain,  I  jM'csumc  there  can  not  be  much  ques- 
tion as  to  its  value  in  the  minds  of  ordinary  reasoners. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  did  not  go  about  the  world  asserting 
that  the  motions  of  the  planets  must  liave  a  law,  and  railing 
at  ])C0plc  for  doubting  his  assertion.     He  propounded  the 


THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN.  177 

liypothesis  of  gravitation,  and  verified  it  by  reference  to  the 
facts.  We  only  ask  the  discoverers  of  the  Law  of  History 
to  do  the  same. 

In  the  same  Avay,  when  philosophers  proclaim  with  angry 
vehemence,  and  violent  expression  of  contempt  for  gainsay- 
crs,  that  there  is  a  better  religion  than  Christianity,  we  only 
ask  them  to  produce  a  better  religion. 

I  have  indeed  suggested  a  reason  for  surmising  that  the 
verification  of  a  law  of  History  will  be  rather  a  difiicult  mat- 
ter, since,  History  being  but  partly  unfolded,  a  portion  only 
of  the  facts  arc  before  us.  The  "Westminster"  vehemently 
asserts  that "  the  human  race  does  not  increase  in  bulk :  it 
changes  in  character.  In  no  resjyect  does  it  remain  the 
seime.  It  assumes  ever  new  phases P  The  universal  postu- 
late of  science  is  that  things  will  continue  as  they  are.  But 
here  is  a  science  which  postulates  that  the  things  with 
which  it  deals  will  always  be  changing  in  every  respect,  so 
that  the  truth  of  to-day  may  be  the  exploded  chimera  of  to- 
morrow. Direct  verification  of  a  general  hypothesis  in  this 
case  seems  to  be  impossible.  And  as  we  have  no  other  his- 
tory wherewith  to  compare  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
planet,  verification  by  comparison  is  of  course  out  of  the 
question. 

In  regard  to  the  individual  actors  of  which  the  sum  of 
history  is  made  up,  our  "  instincts,"  which  the  "  Westmin- 
ster" allows  are  to  be  taken  into  account  as  well  as  histor- 
ical induction,  tell  us  plainly  that  at  the  moment  of  action 
all  the  "antecedents"  being  as  they  are,  we  are  free  to  do 
the  action  or  let  it  alone.  They  tell  us,  when  the  action  is 
done,  that  we  are  free  to  do  it  or  let  it  alone.  And,  in  the 
form  of  moral  judgment,  they  praise  or  condemn  the  actions 
of  other  men  on  the  same  supposition.  This  is  not  "meta- 
physics," nor  is  it  part  of  any  obsolete  controversv  about 

112 


178  THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

"  predestination."  It  is  at  least  as  much  a  matter  of  com- 
mon sense,  and  a  ground  of  daily  feelings  and  conduct,  as 
the  sensation  of  heat  and  cold.  Till  the  sense  of  moral  free- 
dom, conscience,  and  the  instincts  "which  lead  us  to  praise 
and  blame,  reward  and  punish  the  actions  of  others,  are  ex- 
plained away,  we  shall  continue  to  believe  that  there  is 
something  in  human  actions  which  renders  them  not  mere- 
ly more  "  complex"  than  the  phenomena  of  the  physical 
world,  but  essentially  difierent  in  regard  to  the  mode  of 
their  production. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  account  has  yet  been  given  ci- 
ther of  our  sense  of  freedom  or  of  conscience,  excejit  on  the 
hypothesis  of  free-will.  As  to  jjraise  and  blame,  it  is  said 
they  attach  to  actions  and  qualities  simply  as  they  are  "  mor- 
al." It  only  remains  to  define  "moral,"  and  see  Avhether 
you  can  lielp  including  in  it  the  notion  of  freedom,  "Wo 
arc  told  that  fixed  and  settled  dispositions  are  praised  and 
blamed  most,  though,  from  the  fact  that  they  are  fixed  and 
settled,  their  actions  are  the  least  free.  ]>ut  we  praise  and 
blame  such  dispositions  on  the  assumption  that  they  were 
freely  formed.  Nothing  can  be  cither  more  fixed  and  set- 
tled or  more  odious  than  the  dis2)Osition  of  a  man  who  has 
been  bred  up  among  cannibals  and  thieves.  Yet  we  blame 
it  very  little,  because  it  has  not  been  freely  formed. 

It  may  be  observed  that,  in  attempting  to  explain  moral 
approbation  or  disapprobation  as  attaching,  not  to  free  ac- 
tions or  freely-formed  characters,  but  to  "moral  qualities," 
the  "  Westminster"  is  simply  reproducing  the  argument  by 
which  Jonathan  Edwards  attempted  to  reconcile  moral 
sense  Mith  Predestination.  Some  caution,  therefore,  should 
be  used  in  sneering  at  the  views  of  Jonathan  Edwards  as  a 
type  of  obsolete  metaphysics. 

As  to  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  "habit,"  I  should  not  be 


THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   I\rAiSr.  179 

afraid  to  impugn  it  (if  it  were  uecessary)  auy  more  than 
the  Aristotehan  theory  that  virtue  consists  in  acting  "in  a 
mean."  I  am  strongly  iucHned  to  think  that  Aristotle,  and 
those  who  have  followed  him,  observed  vice  and  jumped  to 
a  couckision  about  virtue.  I  have  no  doubt  that  in  its  prog- 
ress toward  vice  the  soul  falls  under  the  dominion  of  quasi- 
material  laws,  of  which  it  becomes  at  last  the  utte-r  slave. 
But  I  believe,  and  think  it  matter  of  general  consciousness, 
that  the  progress  of  the  soul  toward  virtue  is  a  progress  to- 
ward freedom. 

The  theory  of  human  action  in  which  the  "  "Westminster" 
at  present  reposes  is,  that  "our  acts  are  caused  mainly  by 
our  own  characters,  which  arc  formed  mainly  by  our  own 
eflbrts."  It  only  remains  to  give  us  an  account  of"  eflbrt." 
Is  it  the  same  Avith  action,  or  something  different?  If  it  is 
the  same,  the  theory  comes  to  this — that  action  is  caused  by 
character,  which  is  caused  by  action.  If  it  is  diflereut,  tell 
us  what  it  is,  and  bring  it  into  the  chain  of  necessary  conse- 
quences on  which  your  science  is  to  be  founded. 

"The  common  sense  of  mankind  seems  to  have  assumed 
that  the  will  possesses  an  immense  power  of  subduing  cir- 
cumstances, forming  character,  and  regulating  action."  Com- 
pare this  with  the  allegation  in  the  next  page  but  one,  that 
"our  wills  arc  determined  by  our  characters  and  our  cir- 
cumstances." In  the  first  proposition  the  "  Avill"  is  evident- 
ly taken  to  be  the  original  source  of  character.  In  the  sec- 
ond the  will  is  determined  by  the  character  which  it  origin- 
ates. 

Look,  too,  at  the  following  passage,  in  which  the  "West- 
minster" attempts  to  turn  upon  me  an  expression  I  have 
used  as  to  the  constant  working  of  the  Deity  in  nature : 
"If  He  is  not  working  still  in  nature,  he  says,  we  have  a 
strange  idea  of  Providence.     Tlicn  ITis  will  must  continue 


ISO  THE   MORAL   FREEDOil   OF   MAN. 

to  maintain  regular  laws.  If  lie  does,  is  He,  too,  absorbed 
into  this  chain  of  fate  ?  Is  His  will  sunk  in  a  pliysical  ne- 
cessity ?  No,  they  will  tell  us.  He  works  regularly,  because 
it  is  Ilis  nature  to  act  by  law.  Then  why  is  it  so  degrading 
to  suppose  that  this  is  man's  nature  also?"  Does  the  Re- 
viewer hold  that  man  "  maintains  the  regular  laws  of  human 
nature  by  his  willV"  or  is  his  argument  that,  since  it  is  not 
degrading  to  the  Deity  to  be  the  master  of  natural  laws,  it 
is  not  degrading  to  man  to  be  their  slave  ? 

The  fact  is,  we  have  not  before  us  in  the  "  Westminster" 
any  definite  theory  of  human  action,  of  humanity,  or  of  his- 
tory whatever.  TVe  have  merely  a  passionate  determina- 
tion to  assert  that  there  is  some  scientific  law  which  shall 
oust  "  the  popular  religion,"  and  that,  even  though  the  law 
can  not  be  found,  it  ought  to  be,  and  must  be  there. 

A  torrent  of  ridicule  is  poured  upon  me  for  having  sup- 
posed that  any  inferences  aflecting  the  freedom  of  human 
action  have  ever  been  drawn,  or  that  there  has  been  a  tend- 
ency to  draw  any,  from  the  alleged  uniformity  of  "moral 
statistics."  There  are  various  ways  of  receding  from  an 
untenable  position  ;  and  that  of  contemptuously  denying 
that  it  M'as  ever  taken  up,  if  not  the  most  gracious  or  ingen- 
uous, is  perhaps  the  most  satisfactory  and  decisive.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  contemptuous  denial  that  there 
has  been  any  disposition  to  applaud  pliysical  theories  which 
break  down  the  barrier  between  humanity  and  brutes. 

It  would  be  a  very  wicked  as  well  as  a  very  silly  thing  to 
oppose  such  a  benefit  to  mankind  as  the  formation  of  a  new 
science.  If  the  Reviewer  thinks  he  can  found  a  science  on 
"  high  probability  running  not  seldom  into  moral  certainty" 
— the  estimate  of  the  foundation  of  his  new  science  which 
he  appears  willing  to  adopt — lot  him  do  so  by  all  means, 
and  wc  M'ill  repose  under  the  bcnoficent  shadow  of  the  sci- 


THE   MOKAL    FREEDOM   OF   ilAN.  181 

cnce  which  he  fouuds.  I  have  no  fear  lest  man  should  be 
"degraded"  by  the  reception  of  any  kind  of  truth.  On  the 
other  hand, I  have  not  much  fear  lest  I  should  "undermine 
all  natural  religion"  by  maintaining  that  free  personality  in 
and  through  which  alone  men  can  apprehend  or  commune 
with  a  personal  God. 

Of  course  there  is  no  direct  opposition  between  scientific 
prevision  and  the  freedom  of  human  action.  The  opposition 
is  between  the  freedom  of  human  action  and  the  necessary 
causation  on  which  scientific  prevision  is  founded.  As  to 
the  Divine  prevision,  which  is  so  freely  used  as  an  argument- 
uni  ad  Jiominem  against  the  advocates  of  free-will,  it  would 
eonflict  with  the  freedom  of  human  action  if  it  were  found- 
ed, like  scientific  prevision,  on  necessary  causation.  But  wc 
have  not  the  slightest  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  the  case. 
"We  can  not  form  the  slightest  idea  as  to  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  prevision,  and  till  we  can  it  will  be  a  mere  sophism 
to  bring  it  into  this  question. 

Christendom  has  been  compelled  by  its  moral  instincts  to 
reject  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  i^redestination  ;  and  though " 
that  doctrine  may  put  on  the  name  of  "Providence"  or 
"  scientific  prevision,"  we  shall  be  compelled  by  the  same  in- 
stincts to  reject  it  still. 

Transfer  to  the  subject  of  physical  science  the  admissions 
which  the  discoverers  of  this  new  science  of  humanity  are 
compelled  to  make  touching  their  subject,  and  let  us  see 
what  the  consequence  to  physical  science  would  be.  Sup- 
pose physical  agents  endowed  with  a  "  will,"  that  will  pos- 
sessing "immense  power  of  subduing  their  circumstances," 
"forming  their  character,  and  regulating  their  actions ;"  sup- 
pose that  their  operations  were  caused  by  their  "  characters," 
and  tlAt  their  characters  "  were  caused  mainly  by  their  own 
eflx)rts ;"  that  they  had  the  fullest  power  "  to  develop  their 


182  THE   MOKAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

own  faculties"  mid  to  "  form  their  own  future" — what  sort 
of  ground  would  physical  science  tlicn  rest  on  ?  With  liOAV 
much  conlidencc  would  her  inductions  and  predictions  bo 
made  ? 

So  far  as  human  actions  are  determined,  not  by  the  self- 
formed  character  and  the  individual  Avill,  but  by  our  circum- 
stances, including  the  genei'al  constitution  of  our  nature,  so 
far  they  are  of  course  the  subjects  actually,  or  potentially,  of 
science ;  and  on  this  ground  the  sciences  of  ethics,  politics, 
and  political  economy  arc  formed,  5t  is  not,  I  believe,  in 
any  thing  tha-t  I  have  written  that  you  will  find  a  low  esti- 
mate of  the  benefits  which  an  improved  treatment  of  those 
sciences  is  likely  to  confer  on  mankind. 

It  is  not  iihilosophic  to  class  under  the  head  of  circum- 
stance the  influence  Avhich  the  social  actions  of  men  have  on 
the  lives  and  characters  of  their  fellows.  That  the  life  and 
character  of  each  of  us  is  immensely  influenced  by  society, 
so  much  so  as  to  confine  the  free-Avill  and  the  responsibility 
of  each  Mithin  narrow  limits,  is  a  thought  not  unwelcome, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  most  welcome  to  the  M'eakness  of  hu- 
manity. Yet  each  of  us  knows  that  there  is  something 
Avhich  depends,  not  on  the  society  in  which  he  is  placed,  but 
on  himself  alone. 

Every  man,  looking  back  over  his  own  past  life,  feels  that 
he  has  been  in  a  great  degree  the  creature  of  circumstance 
and  of  social  influences.  He  can  also,  so  far  as  his  memory 
serves  him,  trace  the  connection  of  each  of  his  past  actions 
with  a  motive,  and  of  the  motives  with  his  pre-existing  char- 
acter and  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  him,  and  thus 
construct  a  sort  of  miniature  philosophy  of  his  own  history. 
Yet  every  man  knows  that  l)y  the  exertion  of  his  own  will 
lie  might  have  made  his  life  other  than  it  has  been.  - 

As  to  the  theory  of  history  which  I  have  ventured  to  pro- 


THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN".  183 

pound,  viz.,  that  its  key  is  to  be  found,  not,  as  Mr.  Buckle 
maintains,  in  the  progress  of  science,  but  in  the  formation  of 
man's  chai'acter,  which  is  pre-eminently  rehgious  and  moral, 
I  hope  there  is  nothing  on  the  face  of  that  theory  disgrace- 
fully irrational.  Its  truth  or  falsehood  can  be  satisfactorily 
determined  only  when  it  has  been  applied  to  the  facts  of 
history.  Few,  at  all  events,  will  doubt  that  to  write  the 
history  of  man  worthily,  it  is  necessary  to  get  to  the  very 
core  of  humanity,  in  which  case  "  religion  and  morality" 
can  hardly  be  excluded  from  consideration. 

I  emphatically  repeat  that  I  have  no  desire  to  obstruct  the 
formation  of  a  new  science.  I  will  reverently  accept  it  when 
it  is  formed,  in  the  fullest  faith  that  it  will  be  elevating  as 
well  as  beneficial  to  mankind.  But  we  may  be  allowed  to 
think  that  there  are  such  things  as  chimeras  in  the  intel- 
lectual world,  and  that  some  of  them  are  pernicious,  even 
though  they  may  be  patronized  by  very  excellent  peojile. 
"Mr.  Mill"  and  " Miss  Martineau"  are  active  thinkers,  and 
persons  of  corresponding  moral  vigor ;  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  their  qualities  will  descend  to  those  who  are  imbued 
with  their  theories,  any  more  than  the  ^''^^nty  of  Epicurus 
descended  to  the  Epicureans,  or  the  fiery  energy  of  Moham- 
med to  the  fatalistic  Turk.  As  to  "  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis,"  there 
is  not  a  line  in  his  works  which  warrants  the  "Westmin- 
ster" in  appealing  to  his  name. 

Suppose  the  Scotch  were  to  accept  as  true  the  very  defect- 
ive, inaccurate,  and  misleading  analysis  which  Mr.  Buckle 
has  given  of  their  history ;  they  would  be  led  at  once  to 
discard  that  which,  with  all  its  imperfections  and  drawbacks, 
has  been  the  root  of  their  greatness  as  a  nation.  Xo  regard 
for  politeness  could  hinder  me  from  calling  such  a  conse- 
quence pernicious. 

I  drew  a  parallel  between  the  circumstances  of  the  present 


184  THE   MORAL   FREEDOM   OF   MAN. 

day  and  tliosc  of  the  last  century;  aud  I  ■will  conclude  with 
some  Avords  of  Dugald  Stewart,  written  at  the  end  of  the 
last  century,  which,  if  not  strictly  relevant  to  the  present 
question,  have,  I  think,  a  bearing  on  it,  aud  are  good  in 
themselves :  "  That  implicit  credulity  is  a  mark  of  a  feeble 
mind  will  not  be  disputed ;  but  it  may  not  perhaps  be  as 
generally  acknowledged  that  the  case  is  the  same  with  nn- 
limited  skepticism.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  sometimes  apt 
to  ascribe  this  disposition  to  a  more  than  ordinary  vigor 
of  intellect.  Such  a  prejudice  was  by  no  means  unnatural 
at  tliat  period  in  the  history  of  modern  Europe  when  reason 
first  began  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  authority,  and  Avhen  it 
unquestionably  required  a  superiority  of  understanding  as 
well  as  of  intrepidity  for  an  individual  to  resist  the  conta- 
gion of  a  prevailing  superstition.  But  in  the  present  age, 
in  which  the  tendency  of  fashionable  opinions  is  directly 
opposite  to  those  of  the  vulgar,  the  philosophical  creed,  the 
philosojihical  skepticism  of  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
those  who  value  themselves  on  an  emancipation  from  popu- 
lar errors,  arises  from  the  very  same  weakness  with  the  cre- 
dulity of  the  multitude;  nor  is  it  going  too  far  to  say,  with 
Rousseau,  that '  he  who  in  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
lias  brought  himself  to  abandon  all  his  early  principles  with- 
out discrimination,  would  probably  have  been  a  bigot  in  the 
days  of  the  League.' "     I  am,  etc., 

GoLDWiN  Smith. 
Oxford,  Nov.  18,  18G1. 


ON  THE 


F01M)ATI0N  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES. 


Colony  is  an  ambiguous  word:  the  Phoenician  colo- 
nies were  factories ;  the  Roman  colonies  were  garrisons ; 
the  Spanish  colonies  were  gold  mines,  worked  by  slaves ; 
France  justly  placed  the  products  of  her  Algerian  colony 
in  our  Exhibition  under  the  heading  "Ministry  of  War." 
The  Greek  cities,  in  the  hour  of  their  greatness,  founded 
new  cities  the  counterparts  of  themselves.  England  has 
had  the  honor — an  honor  which  no  disaster  can  now 
rend  from  her  —  of  becoming  the  parent  of  new  nations. 
To  colonize  in  this  the  highest  sense  is  the  attribute  of 
freedom.  Freedom  only  can  give  the  necessary  self-re- 
liance. In  freedom  only  can  the  habit  of  self-govern- 
ment requisite  for  a  young  community  be  formed.  The 
life  of  the  plant  must  be  diffused  through  all  its  parts,  or 
its  cuttings  will  not  grow. 

It  is  evidently  a  law  of  Providence  that  man  shall 
spread  over  the  earth,  make  it  fruitful,  fill  it  with  moral 
being.  When  all  its  powers  are  brought  into  play,  when 
it  has  a  civilized  nation  on  every  shore,  when  the  instru- 
ment is,  as  it  were,  fully  strung,  wc  know  not  what  har- 


186  ox  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

mony  may  result.  The  great  migrations  of  mankind  are 
the  great  epochs  of  history.  In  the  East,  the  succession 
of  empires  has  been  formed  by  the  successive  descents 
of  warlike  tribes  on  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia,  on  the 
countries  bordering  the  Persian  Gulf,  on  Ilindostan  and 
China.  In  the  West,  the  evidence  which  tends  to  prove 
that  the  Greek  and  Eoman  aristocracies  were  conquer- 
ing races,  tends  also  to  prove  that  Greece  and  Eomc  were 
the  offspring  of  migrations.  The  migration  of  the  Ger- 
man tribes  into  the  Roman  empire  divides  ancient  from 
modern,  heathen  from  Christian  history.  So  far  the  pro- 
pelling cause  was  the  want  of  fresh  pastures,  or,  at  high- 
est, the  restlessness  of  conscious  strength,  the  sight  of  ill- 
defended  wealth,  the  allurements  of  sunnier  lands.  The 
American  colonies  arc  the  offspring  of  humanity  at  a 
more  advanced  stage  and  in  a  nobler  mood.  They  arose 
from  discontent,  not  witli  exhausted  pastures,  but  with 
institutions  that  were  w^axing  old,  and  a  faith  that  was 
ceasing  to  be  divine.  They  arc  monuments  of  that  vast 
and  various  movement  of  humanit3'',the  significance  of 
which  is  but  half  expressed  by  the  name  of  the  Ecforma- 
tion.  They  arc  still  receiving  recruits  from  a  movement 
•which  is  now  going  on  similar  to  the  movement  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  joerhaps  not  less  momentous, 
though,  as  we  are  still  in  the  midst  of  it,  not  so  clearly 
understood.  The  enterprises  of  the  Puritans,  like  their 
worship,  seemed  to  our  forefathers  eccentricities,  disturb- 
ing for  a  moment  the  eternal  order  of  society  and  the 
Church  ;  but  that  which  in  the  eyes  of  man  is  eccentrici- 
ty, is  sometimes  in  the  course  of  Providence  the  central 
power. 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  187 

Before  the  actual  commencement  of  tlie  Eeformation 
European  society  began  to  feel  those  blind  motions  of  the 
blood  which  told  that  the  world's  year  had  turned,  and 
that  the  Middle  Ages  were  drawing  to  their  close.  A 
general  restlessness  showed  itself,  among  other  ways,  in 
maritime  adventure.  The  Columbus  of  England  was 
John  Cabot,  borrowed,  like  the  Columbus  of  Spain,  from 
a  nation  which,  crushed  at  home,  put  forth  its  greatness 
in  other  lands.  At  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
John  Cabot,  with  his  more  fomous  son  Sebastian,  sailed 
from  Bristol,  the  queen,  and  now,  with  its  quaint  streets 
and  beautiful  church,  the  monument,  of  English  com- 
merce, as  English,  commerce  was  in  its  more  romantic 
and  perhaps  its  nobler  hour.  The  adventurers  put  forth, 
graciously  authorized  by  King  Henry  YII.  to  discover  a 
new  world  at  their  own  risk  and  charge,  and  to  hold  it 
as  vassals  of  his  crown,  landing  alwaj-s  at  his  port  of 
Bristol,  and  paying  him  one  fifth  of  the  gains  forever. 
This  royal  grant  of  the  earth  to  man,  like  similar  grants 
made  by  the  Papacy,  may  provoke  a  smile,  but  it  was 
the  same  delusion  which  in  after  times  cost  tears  and 
blood.  The  reward  of  the  Cabots  was  the  discovery  of 
North  America;  and  Sebastian,  in  his  second  voyage, 
saw  the  sun  of  the  arctic  summer  night  shine  upon  the 
icebergs  of  the  pole.  The  great  Elizabethan  mariners 
took  up  the  tale.  They  had  two  aims  —  gold,  and  the 
northwest  passage  to  the  treasures  of  the  East.  Without 
chart  or  guide,  with  only,  to  use  their  own  phrase,  a 
"  merrie  wind,"  they  went  forth  on  voyages  which  might 
have  appalled  a  Franklin,  as  free  and  fearless  as  a  child 
at  play.     Frobisher  sailed  north  of  Hudson's  Strait  in  a 


188  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

bark  of  twenty -five  tons.  As  he  dropped  down  the 
Thames,  Elizabeth  graciously  waved  her  hand  to  an  en- 
terprise for  which  she  had  done  nothing ;  a  great  art, 
and  one  which  has  something  to  give  the  queen  her  ped- 
estal in  history.  Gilbert,  with  a  little  fleet  of  boats  rath- 
er than  ships,  took  possession  for  England  of  Newfound- 
land. As  he  was  on  his  way  homeward,  off  Cape  Bre- 
ton, in  a  wild  night,  the  lights  of  his  little  vessel  disap- 
peared. The  last  words  he  had  been  heard  to  say  were, 
"  Heaven  is  as  near  by  sea  as  it  is  by  land." 

Gold  lured  these  adventurers  to  discover  countries,  as 
it  lured  the  alchemist  to  found  a  science.  In  their  thirst 
for  gold  they  filled  their  ships  with  yellow  earth.  Had 
that  yellow  earth  really  been  the  precious  metal,  it  would 
have  made  the  finders  richer  only  for  an  hour,  and 
brought  confusion  upon  commerce  and  the  whole  estate 
of  man.  The  treasures  of  the  precious  metals  seem  to 
be  so  laid  that  new  stores  may  be  found  only  when  the 
circle  of  trade  is  greatly  enlarged,  and  the  wealth  of 
mankind  greatly  increased.  And  if  the  precious  metals 
are  the  only  or  the  best  circulating  medium,  and  it  is 
necessary  that  the  balance  between  them  and  the  sum  of 
human  wealth  should  be  preserved,  this  may  perhaps  be 
reckoned  among  the  proofs  that  the  earth  is  adapted  to 
the  use  of  man. 

England  had  a  keen  race  for  North  America  with 
Spain  and  France.  The  name  of  Espiritu  Santo  Bay, 
on  the  coast  of  Florida,  commemorates  the  presence  of 
those  devout  adventurers  who  marched  with  a  train  of 
priests,  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  ma.ss,  with 
blood-hounds  to  hunt  the  natives  and  chains  to  bind 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  189 

them.  Spanish  keels  first  floated  on  the  imperial  waters 
and  among  the  primeval  forests  of  the  Mississippi.  The 
name  of  Carolina,  a  settlement  planned  by  Coligny,  is  a 
monument  fixed  bj  the  irony  of  fate  to  the  treacherous 
friendship  of  Charles  IX.  with  the  Huguenots  on  the  eve 
of  the  St.  Bartholomew.  North  America  would  have 
been  ill  lost  to  the  Spaniard ;  it  would  not  have  been  so 
ill  lost  to  the  Iluguenot. 

But  the  prize  was  to  be  ours.  After  roaming  for  a 
century  from  Florida  to  Greenland,  English  enterprise 
furled  its  wandering  sail  upon  a  shore  which  to  its  first 
explorers  seemed  a  paradise,  and  called  the  land  Vir- 
ginia, after  the  Virgin  Queen.  Ealeigh  was  deep  in  this 
venture,  as  his  erratic  spirit  was  deep  in  all  the  ventures, 
commercial,  political,  military,  and  literary,  of  that  stir- 
ring and  prolific  time.  So  far  as  his  own  fortunes  were 
concerned,  this  scheme,  like  most  of  his  other  schemes, 
was  a  brilliant  failure.  In  after  times  North  Carolina 
called  her  capital  by  his  name — 

"  Et  nunc  scrvat  honor  sedcm  tuus,  ossaque  nomcn 
Ilesperia  in  magna,  siqua  est  ea  gloria,  signat" — 

if  that  can  appease  the  injured,  unhappy,  and  heroic 
shade. 

Virginia  had  seemed  an  earthly  paradise.  But  on 
reading  intently  the  annals  of  colonization,  we  soon  dis- 
cover how  hard  it  is  for  man  to  fix  his  dwelling  where 
his  fellow  has  never  been ;  how  he  sinks  and  perishes 
before  the  face,  grand  and  lovely  though  it  be,  of  colos- 
sal, unreclaimed,  trackless  nature.  The  Virginian  colo- 
nists had  among  them  too  many  broken  gentlemen, 
tradesmen,  and  serving -men,  too  few  who  were  good 


190  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

Lands  at  the  axo  and  spade.  They  had  come  to  a  land 
of  promise  in  expectation  of  great  and  speedy  gains,  and 
it  seems  clear  tbat  great  and  speedy  gains  are  not  to  be 
made  by  felling  primeval  woods.  That  the  enterprise 
was  not  abandoned  was  due  in  a  great  measure  to  the 
cheering  presence  of  a  wild  adventurer,  named  Captain 
John  Smith,  who,  turned  by  his  kind  relations  as  a  boy 
upon  a  stirring  world,  with  ten  shillings  in  his  pocket, 
and  that  out  of  his  own  estate,  had,  before  he  was  thirty, 
a  tale  to  tell  of  wars  in  the  Low  Countries  and  against 
the  Turks^  of  battles  and  single  combats,  of  captivities, 
of  wanderings  and  voyages  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe, 
as  strange  and  moving  as  the  tale  of  Othello ;  and  who, 
if  he  did  not  win  a  Desdemona,  won  a  Turkish  princess 
to  save  him  from  the  bowstring  at  Adrianople,  and  an 
Indian  princess  to  save  him  from  the  tomahawk  in  Vir- 
ginia. Again  and  again  the  settlement  was  recruited 
and  re-supplied.  The  original  colony  of  Raleigh  quite 
died  out,  and  upon  the  place  of  its  transient  abode  na- 
ture resumed  her  immemorial  reign.  The  settlement 
was  made  good  under  James  I.,  and  at  last  prospered  by 
the  cultivation  of  tobacco,  so  that  the  royal  author  of  the 
"  Counterblast"  unwillingly  became*  the  patron  of  the 
staple  he  most  abhorred.  Even  this  second  colony  once 
re-embarked  in  despair,  and  was  turned  back  by  the 
long-boat  of  the  vessel  which  brought  it  re-enforcements 
and  supplies. 

To  mankind  the  success  of  tlic  Yirginian  colony  proved 
but  a  doubtful  boon.  The  tobacco  was  cultivated  first 
"by  convicts,  then  by  negro  slaves.  The  Dutch  brought 
llie  first  cargo  of  negroes  to  the  colony ;  but  the  guilt  of 


THE   AMERICAN   COLOXIES.  191 

tliis  detested  traffic  does  not  rest  in  any  especial  manner 
on  the  Dutch :  the  whole  of  commercial  Europe  was 
tainted  with  the  sin.  Sir  John  Hawkins,  Elizabeth's 
gallant  admiral,  was  a  slaver,  and  the  crown  itself  was 
not  ashamed  to  share  his  gains.  The  cities  of  Spain 
were  seats  of  the  slave-trade  as  well  as  of  religions  per- 
secutions ;  and  both  these  deadly  diseases  of  humanity 
had  been  stimulated  by  the  Crusades.  Even  the  Puri- 
tans of  New  England  were  preserved  from  the  contagion 
rather  by  their  energetic  industry  as  free  laborers,  and 
the  nobility  of  their  character,  than  by  clear  views  of 
right.  They  denounced  kidnapping;  they  forbad  slav- 
ery to  be  perpetual;  but  bondage  in  itself  seemed  to 
them  lawful  because  it  was  Jewish.  It  is  an  additional 
reason  for  dealing  carefully  with  the  subject  of  Jewish 
history  and  the  Jewish  law,  when  we  see  them  wrested 
as  they  are' to  the  defense  of  slavery,  with  all  its  abysses 
of  cruelty  and  lust.  To  put  the  case  as  low  as  possible. 
Can  those  who  support  slavery  by  Jewish  precedents  say 
that  the  Jews  for  whom  Moses  legislated  possessed  that 
dehnite  conviction  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  that 
clear  conception  of  the  spiritual  life  and  of  the  spiritual 
relations  of  man  to  man,  on  which  the  loathsomeness  of 
slaveowning  in  a  Christian's  eyes  principally  depends? 
Nor,  again,  must  slaveowners  fancy  they  are  counterparts 
of  English  gentlemen.  It  has  been  remarked  that  En- 
glish gentlemen,  when  owners  of  West  Indian  propert}", 
shrank  with  a  half-honorable  inconsistency  from  living 
on  their  estates  and  plying  the  trade  of  the  slaveowner, 
though  they  did  not  shrink  from  taking  the  slaveowner's 
gains.     To  continue  a  slaveowner,  the  American  must  be 


192  ON  THE   FOUNDATION  OF 

ialse,  not  only  to  Christianity,  but  to  nil  that  is  proud 
and  bigli  in  the  great  race  from  ^vbich  Lc  springs.  The 
growth  of  trade  has  neeessarily  rendered  the  system 
more  mercenary,  cold-blooded,  and  vile.  It  was  milder 
and  more  patriarchal  in  the  hands  of  the  Virginian  gen- 
tlemen of  earlier  days.  Washington  himself  was  a  Vir- 
ginian slaveowner,  the  best  of  slaveowners,  and  therefore 
a  strong  though  temperate  advocate  for  the  immediate 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  and  the  progressive  emanci- 
pation of  the  slaves.  Jefferson,  the  first  president  of  the 
party  which  now  upholds  slavery,  and,  like  "Washington, 
a  Virginian  jDroprietor,  also  spoke  strong  words,  uttered 
terrible  warnings,  though  political  j^assion  made  him 
partly  faithless  to  the  cause.  England  indeed  owes  the 
American  slaveowner  charity  and  patience,  for  she  was 
the  full  accomplice,  if  she  was  not  the  author  of  his  guilt. 
In  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  we  bargained  with  Spain  for  a 
share  in  the  negro  trade;  and  Queen  Anne  mentioned 
til  is  article  in  her  speech  to  Parliament  as  one  of  the  tro- 
phies of  a  war  undertaken  to  save  the  liberties  of  Europe. 
It  is  true  the  spirit  of  William  surviving  in  his  council- 
ors made  the  war,  the  spirit  of  Bolingbrokc  made  the 
peace.  But  long  after  the  peace  of  Utrecht,  down  to  the 
very  eve  of  our  rupture  with  the  American  colonics,  we 
encouraged,  we  enforced  the  trade,  and  in  our  West  In- 
dian slave  colonies  wc  kept  up  the  focus  of  the  pestilence. 
Still,  we  have  purged  ourselves  of  the  stain.  The  Amer- 
ican slave  states  were  in  their  own  hands,  they  were  fresh 
in  the  enjoyment  of  their  own  liberties,  the  declaration 
of  the  Rights  of  Man  was  on  their  lips,  the  case  was  not 
desperate,  the  cause  was  earnestly  pleaded  before  them, 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  193 

■when  they  in  effect  determined  that  they  would  let  slav- 
ery be  as  it  had  been.  Then  their  good  angel  left  their 
side."] 

TEere  is  in  America  another  race,  less  injured  than  the 
negro,  but  scarcely  less  unhappy.  The  first  English  ex- 
plorers of  Virginia  brought  word  that  they  had  been  "en- 
tertained by  the  Indians  with  all  love  and  kindness,  and 
with  as  much  bounty,  after  their  manner,  as  they  could 
possibly  devise ;  and  that  they  found  them  a  people  most 
gentle,  loving,  and  faithful,  void  of  all  guile  and  treason, 
and  such  as  lived  after  the  manner  of  the  Golden  Age." 
These  loving  entertainments  and  this  golden  age  were 
soon  followed  by  an  iron  age  of  suspicion,  hatred,  en- 
croachment, border  warfare,  treacherous  and  murderous 
onfalls  of  the  weaker  on  the  stronger,  bloody  vengeance 
of  the  stronger  on  the  weaker.  And  now  it  seems  there 
will  soon  be  nothing  left  of  the  disinherited  race  but  the 
strange  music  of  its  names  mingling  with  the  familiar 
names  of  England  in  the  hills  and  rivers  of  its  ancient 
heritage.  Yet  its  blood  is  not  on  the  heads  of  those  who 
dwell  in  its  room.  They,  indeed,  have  turned  the  wil- 
derness over  which  it  wandered  into  the  cities  and  corn- 
fields of  a  great  nation,  and  in  so  doing  they  have  obeyed 
the  law  of  Providence,  which  has  given  the  earth,  not  for 
the  dominion,  but  for  the  support  of  man.  They  con- 
jured the  phantom  of  the  Indian  hunter's  proprietary 
right  by  the  forms  of  treaty  and  purchase.  They  did 
not  seek  to  exterminate,  they  did  not  seek  to  enslave; 
they  did  seek  to  civilize  and  convert.  Protestantism  in 
its  noblest  and  purest  form,  and  the  better  spirit  of  Jes- 
uitism— the  spirit,  that  is,  of  Xavier  and  not  of  Loyola — 

I 


19-i  ON   THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

vied  with  each  other  in  doing  all  that  religion  could  do 
to  elevate  and  save.  The  marriage  of  an  Indian  princess 
with  an  Englishman  was  hailed  as  an  auspicious  pledge 
of  the  union  of  the  two  races  under  one  name  and  with 
one  God.  But  the  fate  of  savages  brought  abruptly  into 
contest  with  civilization  has  every  where  been  the  same. 
Never,  says  an  eminent  writer,  have  they  been  reclaimed 
except  by  religion.  It  is  the  exception  that  is  doubtful. 
Where  are  the  reclaimed,  or  rather  the  domesticated  sav- 
ages of  Paraguay,  whose  dwindling  numbers,  even  under 
the  Jesuit  rule,  were  kept  up  by  decoying  recruits  from 
neighboring  tribes  ?  What  do  we  hear  as  to  the  proba- 
ble fate  of  the  reclaimed  savages  of  New  Zealand  ?  It 
seems  as  though  to  pass  at  a  bound  from  the  lowest  step 
in  the  scale  to  the  highest  were  not  given  to  man ;  as 
though  to  attempt  it,  even  with  the  best  aid,  were  to  die. 
Merc  savages  the  Indians  seem  to  have  been,  though 
America  has  filled  the  void  of  romance  in  her  history 
with  their  transfigured  image.  They  knew  the  simpler 
arts  of  life ;  they  had  great  acuteness  of  sense,  and  forti- 
tude equaled  only  by  their  cruelty ;  but  they  lived  and 
died  creatures  of  the  hour,  caring  not  for  the  past  or  for 
the  future,  keeping  no  record  of  their  forefathers,  not 
storing  thought,  without  laws  and  government  but  those 
of  a  herd,  using  the  imagery  of  sense,  their  seeming  elo- 
quence, only  because  they  lacked  the  language  of  the 
mind,  having  no  religion  but  a  vague  awe,  which  fixed 
on  every  thing  terrible  or  marvelous  as  a  god.  Yet  they 
did  not  exist  in  vain.  Without  their  presence,  their  aid, 
slight  as  it  was,  their  guidance,  the  heart  of  the  wanderer 
would  perhaps  have  utterly  sunk  in  that  vast  solitude, 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  195 

then  a  world  away  from  home  and  succor.  The  animal 
perfection  of  their  lower  nature  enabled  them  to  struggle 
with  and  thread  the  wilderness,  the  horrors  of  which 
their  want  of  the  finer  nature  made  them  all  the  more 
fit  to  bear.  They  were  the  pioneers  of  a  higher  state  of 
things ;  and  perhaps  we,  heirs  as  we  seem  to  ourselves 
of  all  the  ages,  may  to  the  late  heirs  of  our  age  seem  no 
more. 

Virginia  then  went  prosperously,  as  it  was  thought, 
upon  her  course,  the  destined  centre  and  head  of  the 
slave  states.  Her  own  society  and  that  of  the  adjoining- 
states,  which  took  their  color  from  her,  was  old  English 
society,  as  far  as  might  be,  in  a  new  land.  The  royal 
governors  were  little  kings.  There  was  no  aristocracy 
as  in  England,  but  there  was  a  landed  gentry  with  aristo- 
cratic pride.  There  was,  down  to  the  Eevolution,  the 
English  rule  of  primogeniture  in  the  succession  to  land. 
The  Church  o^  England  was  the  church  of  the  colony, 
half  established,  and  a  little  inclined  to  intolerance.  In 
Virginia  many  of  the  Cavaliers  took  refuge  in  their  evil 
hour.  In  Virginia  Charles  II.  reigned  while  he  was  pro- 
scribed in  England.  In  Virginia  a  royal  governor  could 
say,  as  late  as  1671,  "  I  thank  God  there  are  no  free- 
schools  nor  printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  them 
these  hundred  years ;  for  learning  has  brought  disobedi- 
ence, and  misery,  and  sects  into  the  world,  and  printing- 
has  divulged  them,  and  libels  against  the  best  govern- 
ment.    God  keep  us  from  both." 

Meantime,  far  north,  where  the  eastern  mountains  of 
America  press  the  sea,  in  a  bracing  climate,  on  a  soil 
which  demands  free  labor,  another  colony  had  been  form- 


196  ON   THE   FOUNDATION  OF 

cd,  of  other  materials,  and  with  a  different  aim.  Of  a 
poor  Puritan  teacher,  more  truly  than  of  the  royal  re- 
storer of  Virginia,  might  it  have  been  prophesied — 

"Wherever  the  bright  sun  of  lieavon  shall  shine, 
His  honor  and  the  greatucps  of  his  name 
Shall  be,  and  make  new  nations." 

When  the  Presbyterian  James  mounted  the  throne,  the 
persecuted  Puritans  thought  a  better  day  had  dawned. 
They  were  quickly  undeceived.  The  sagacious  eye  of 
the  royal  Solomon  at  once  discerned  how  much  the 
throne  would  be  strengthened  and  secured  by  that  com- 
pact alliance  with  a  party  in  the  Church,  which  soon  laid 
church  and  throne  together  in  the  dust.  At  the  Hamp- 
ton Court  Conference  he  rcvealcd'at  once  his  purpose 
and  his  nature  by  speaking  foul,  unkingly  words  to  the 
honored  leaders  of  that  great  party  whose  heroic  energy, 
shining  forth  in  famous  soldiers  and  famous  statesmen, 
had  saved  England  and  the  English  crown  from  Spain. 
Under  the  vigilant  eye  and  zealous  hand  of  Bancroft,  the 
persecution  grew  hotter  and  more  searching  than  before. 
The  tale  that  follows  has  been  often  told.  A  Puritan 
congregation  on  the  confines  of  Yorkshire,  Lincolnshire, 
and  Nottinghamshire,  whose  teacher's  name  was  Robin- 
son, harassed  beyond  endurance,  resolved  to  leave  all 
they  had  and  fly  to  Ilolland,  there  to  worship  God  in 
peace.  They  accordingly  attempted  to  escape,  were  ar 
rested,  set  free  again  ;  again  they  attempted  to  escape 
were  pursued  by  the  agents  of  persecution  to  the  shore 
and  part  of  them  seized,  but  again  with  difficulty  let  go 
In  Ilolland  the  congregation  dwelt  twelve  years,  devout, 
industrious,  blameless,  no  man,  said  the  Dutch  magis 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  197 

trates,  bringing  suit  or  accusation  against  them ;  the  liv- 
ing image  of  that  for  which  we  gaze  into  the  darkness  of 
the  first  two  centuries  in  vain.  But  the  struggle  for 
bread  was  hard.  The  children  grew  sickly  and  bent 
with  toil  before  their  time.  There  was  war  in  Germany. 
The  cities  of  the  Low  Countries  were  full  of  loose  and 
roving  soldiery,  and  Holland  itself  was  torn  by  the  bloody 
struggle  between  the  Arminians  and  the  Gomarists. 
Some  of  the  younger  members  of  the  congregation  fell 
into  evil  courses,  enlisted,  went  to  sea.  Then  with 
prayer  and  fasting  the  congregation  turned  their  thoughts 
to  the  New  World.  The  Dutch,  learning  their  intention, 
bid  high  for  them,  knowing  well  the  value  of  such  set- 
tlers. But  that  which  they  did  they  would  do  as  En- 
glishmen, and  for  the  honor  of  their  own  land.  They 
made  their  suit  through  friends  in  England  to  the  king 
and  the  Virginia  Company ;  spoke  dutifully  of  the  royal 
authority,  meekly  of  the  authority  of  bishops ;  repre- 
sented that,  though  the  enterprise  was  dangerous — and 
to  peasants  like  them  it  was  dangerous  indeed — though 
the  honor  of  it  might  be  bought  with  life,  yet  in  their 
case,  no  common  one,  it  would  be  rightly  undertaken, 
and  they  were  not  unfit  to  undertake  it.  "We  are  well 
weaned  from  the  delicate  milk  of  our  mother  country, 
and  inured  to  the  difficulties  of  a  strange  land.  The 
people  are  industrious  and  frugal.  We  are  knit  together 
in  a  most  sacred  covenant  of  the  Lord,  of  the  violation 
whereof  we  make  great  conscience,  and  by  virtue  where- 
of we  hold  ourselves  strictly  tied  to  all  care  of  each  oth- 
er's good  and  of  the  whole.  It  is  not  with  us  as  with 
men  whom  small  thinsis  can  discouraorc."     The  Virojinia 


198  ON  THE   FOUNDATION  OF 

Company  gave  hesitating  assistance  and  a  worthless  pat- 
ent. The  king  and  the  bishops  held  out  fair  hopes  of 
beneficent  neglect.  "  Ungrateful  Americans !"  cried  a 
minister  in  a  debate  on  the  Stamp  Act.  "Planted  by 
our  care,"  cried  another  minister,  "nourished  up  by  our 
indulgence,  will  they  grudge  to  contribute  their  mite  to 
relieve  us  from  the  heavy  burden  we  lie  under  ?" 

Through  the  solemn  sadness  of  the  parting  from  Delft 
Haven  shone  the  glory  of  great  things  to  come.  History 
reveals  abysses  which,  if  her  evidence  were  all,  might 
make  us  doubt  which  power  it  was  that  ruled  the  world. 
But  history  bears  steady  witness  to  the  lasting  ascend- 
ency of  moral  over  physical  force.  All  rhetoric  apart, 
those  masters  of  thirty  legions,  who  with  so  much  blood 
and  din  shift  to  and  fro  the  boundaries  of  kingdoms,  go 
to  dust,  and,  saving  the  evil  they  leave  behind  them,  are 
as  though  they  had  never  been ;  but  these  poor  peasants, 
at  small  charge  to  the  Virginia  Company,  became  in  a 
real  sense  the  founders  of  a  new  world. 

It  was  not  from  Delft  Haven,  but  from  Southampton, 
that  they  finally  embarked.  England  deserved  that  hon- 
or at  their  hands,  for  they  went  forth,  though  not  from 
the  English  government,  from  the  heart  of  the  English 
people.  Of  their  two  little  vessels,  the  "  Speedwell" 
leaked,  and  was  forced  to  put  back,  with  the  weaker 
bodies  and  fainter  spirits  in  her.  The  "  Mayflower" 
went  on  her  way  alone ;  she  went  safely  through  storms, 
carrying  greater  fortunes  than  those  of  d^sar.  On  Sat- 
urday, the  11th  of  November,  1G20,  she  dropped  her  an- 
chor on  a  wintry  coast,  and  next  day  the  Puritan  kept 
his  first  Sabbath  in  his  own  land.     He  kept  that  Sabbath 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  199 

sacred  in  his  extremity ;  and,  amid  tlie  keen  race  for 
wealth,  his  descendants  keep  it  sacred  still.  The  wel- 
come of  the  Puritans  to  their  home  was  the  wilderness  in 
all  its  horrors,  checkered  by  a  few  signs  of  Indian  life, 
and  soon  by  a  volley  of  Indian  arrows ;  snow ;  frost  that 
made  the  wet  clothes  of  the  explorers  stiff  as  iron  ;  hun- 
ger that  drove  them  to  feed  on  shell-fish ;  deadly  fever 
and  consumption.  More  than  half  the  number  died :  the 
survivors  had  scarce  strength  to  bury  the  dead  by  the 
sea  and  conceal  the  graves,  lest  the  Indians  might  per- 
ceive how  the  colony  was  weakened.  The  mortal  strug- 
gle lasted  for  two  years.  Yet  this  colony  did  not,  like 
Virginia,  require  to  be  re-founded,  not  even  to  be  re-vict- 
ualed. "It  is  not  with  us  as  with  men  whom  small 
things  can  discourage."  The  third  summer  brought  a 
good  harvest,  and  the  victory  was  won.  "Let  it  not  be 
grievous  to  you,"  said  the  Puritans  in  England — "  let  it 
not  be  grievous  to  you  that  you  have  been  instruments 
to  break  the  ice  for  others.  The  honor  shall  be  yours  to 
the  world's  end." 

Before  the  Pilgrims  landed,  they  by  a  solemn  instru- 
ment founded  the  Puritan  republic.  The  tone  of  this  in- 
strument and  the  success  of  its  authors  may  afford  a  les- 
son to  revolutionists  who  sever  the  present  from  the  past 
with  the  guillotine,  fling  the  illustrious  dead  out  of  their 
tombs,  and  begin  history  again  with  the  year  one.  These 
men  had  been  wronged  as  much  as  the  Jacobins. 

"  In  the  name  of  God.  Ameu,  Wc  whose  names  are 
underwritten,  the  loyal  subjects  of  our  dread  Sovereign 
Lord  King  James,  by  the  grace  of  God  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,  defender  of  the  faith,  etc.,  having  undertaken. 


200  ON"  THE    FOUNDATION   OF 

for  tbe  glory  of  God  and  advancement  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  honor  of  our  king  and  country,  a  voyage  to 
plant  the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia, 
do  by  these  presents  solemnly  and  mutually,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God  and  of  one  another,  covenant  and  combine 
ourselves  together  into  a  civil  body  politic  for  our  better 
ordering  and  preservation,  and  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
ends  aforesaid  ;  and  by  virtue  hereof  to  exact,  constitute, 
and  frame  such  just  and  equal  laws,  ordinances  and  acts, 
constitutions  and  offices,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall  be 
thought  most  meet  for  the  general  good  of  the  colony, 
unto  which  we  promise  all  due  submission  and  obedi- 
ence." And  then  follows  the  roll  of  plebeian  names,  to 
which  the  Roll  of  Battle  Abbey  is  a  poor  record  of  no- 
bility. 

There  are  points  in  history  at  which  the  spirit  which 
moves  the  whole  shows  itself  more  clearly  through  the 
outward  frame.  This  is  one  of  them.  Ilere  we  are  pass- 
ing from  the  feudal  age  of  privilege  and  force,  to  the  age 
of  due  submission  and  obedience,  to  just  and  equal  offices 
and  laws,  for  our  better  ordering  and  preservation.  In 
this  political  covenant  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers  lies  the  Amer- 
ican Declaration  of  Independence.  From  the  American 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  borrowed  the  French 
Declaration  of  the  Eights  of  Man.  France,  rushing  ill- 
prepared,  though  with  overweening  confidence,  on  the 
great  problems  of  tlic  eighteenth  century,  shattered  not 
her  own  hopes  alone,  but  nearly  at  the  same  moment 
the  Puritan  Republic,  breaking  the  last  slight  link  that 
bound  it  to  feudal  Europe,  and  placing  modern  society 
firmly  and  tranquilly  on  its  new  foundation.    To  the  free 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  201 

States  of  America  we  owe  our  best  assurance  that  the 
oldest,  the  most  famous,  the  most  cherished  of  human 
institutions  are  not  the  life,  nor  would  their  fall  be  the 
death,  of  social  man ;  that  all  which  comes  of  Charle- 
magne, and  all  which  comes  of  Constantine,  might  go  to 
the  tombs  of  Charlemagne  and  Constantine,  and  yet  social 
duty  and  affection,  religion  and  worship,  free  obedience  to 
good  government,  free  reverence  for  just  laws,  continue 
as  before.  They  who  have  achieved  this  have  little  need 
to  talk  of  Bunker's  Hill. 

Not  that  republicanism  in  New  England  is  all  its 
founders  expected  it  to  be.  "Our  popularity,"  said  the 
framers  of  the  popular  constitution  of  Ehode  Island  — 
"our  popularity  shall  not,  as  some  conjecture  it  will, 
prove  an  anarchy,  and  so  a  common  tyranny ;  for  we  are 
exceedingly  desirous  to  preserve  every  man  safe  in  his 
person,  name,  and  estate."  That  might  be  said  confi- 
dently of  a  quiet  agricultural  community  of  small  pro- 
prietors, which  could  not  be  so  confidently  said  of  great 
trading  communities  with  vast  and  restless  cities.  But 
the  Puritan  institutions  have  had  other  difficulties  to  con- 
tend with,  for  which  fair  allowance  must  be  made.  The 
stream  of  English  and  German,  the  torrent  of  Irish  emi- 
gration, relieving  other  countries  of  a  great  danger,  casts 
on  the  Eepublic  a  multitude  of  discontented  and  lawless 
spirits,  for  removed  from  the  restraining  influences  of 
their  native  land,  from  the  eye  of  neighbors,  friends,  and 
kinsmen,  from  the  church-bells  of  their  home.  The  incon- 
gruous and  fatal  union  of  the  free  with  the  slave  states, 
for  which  those  who  drove  them  all  to  combine  against 
English  tyranny  arc  partly  responsible,  has  brought  upon 

12 


202  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

the  constitution  the  tremendous  strain  of  the  great  slave- 
ry question,  and  led  to  that  deadly  alliance  between  the 
Southern  slaveowner  and  the  Northern  anarchist  ■which 
calls  itself  the  Democratic  party.  The  rupture  with  the 
English  monarchy  gave  the  states  a  violent  bias  toward 
democracy,  which  they  were  far  from  exhibiting  before, 
and  set  up  the  revolutionary  doctrine  of  the  sovereign 
people,  which  tends  as  much  as  any  other  despotic  doc- 
trine to  annul  the  greatest  step  in  the  progress  of  hu- 
manity by  placing  will,  though  it  be  the  will  of  the  many, 
above  reason  and  the  law.  To  crown  all  comes  the  pois- 
onous influence  of  the  elective  presidency,  the  great  prize 
of  restless  and  profligate  ambition ;  the  fountain  of  envy, 
malignity,  violence,  and  corruption ;  the  object  of  factions 
otherwise  as  devoid  of  object  and  of  meaning  as  Neri  and 
Bianchi,  Caravat  and  Shanavest ;  in  their  fierce  struggles 
for  which  American  statesmen  have  too  often  shown  that, 
if  public  life  is  the  noblest  of  all  callings,  it  is  the  vilest 
of  all  trades.  The  Diet  of  the  Swiss  Confederation,  pre- 
sided over  by  the  first  magistrate  of  the  leading  canton 
for  the  year,  would  have  furnished  a  happier  model.  The 
character  of  "Washington  is  one  of  the  glories  of  our  race; 
but  was  he  a  man  of  genius?  Did  he  see  that  he  had  to 
frame  a  Constitution  for  a  confederacy  of  republics,  not 
for  a  nation  ?  Did  not  the  image  of  the  English  mon- 
archy, something  of  the  state  of  which  he  thought  it  his 
duty  as  President  to  keep,  hover  too  much  before  his 
eyes?  Yet,  as  he  looked  for  the  progressive  abolition 
of  slavery,  he  must  be  acquitted  of  so  terrible  an  error  as 
an  attempt  to  make  one  nation  of  the  slave  and  free. 
Happily,  political  institutions  kill  as  seldom  as  they  cure. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.  203 

and  the  real  current  of  a  great  nation's  life  may  run 
calmly  beneath  the  seething  and  frothy  surface  which 
alone  meets  our  eyes. 

With  popular  government  the  Puritans  established 
popular  education.  They  are  the  great  authors  of  the 
system  of  common  schools.  They  founded  a  college  too, 
and  that  in  dangerous  and  pinching  times.  Nor  did  their 
care  fail,  nor  is  it  failing,  to  produce  an  intelligent  people. 
A  great  literature  is  a  thing  of  slow  growth  every  where. 
The  growth  of  American  literature  was  retarded  at  first 
by  Puritan  severity,  which  forced  even  philosoj^hy  to  put 
on  a  theological  garb,  and  veiled  the  Necessarianism  of 
Mr.  Mill  in  the  Calvinism  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  Now, 
perhaps,  its  growth  is  retarded  by  the  sudden  burst  of 
commercial  activity  and  wealth,  the  development  of  which 
our  monopolies  long  restrained.  One  day,  perhaps,  this 
wealth  may  be  used  as  nobly  as  the  wealth  of  Florence ; 
but  for  some  time  it  will  be  spent  in  somewhat  coarse 
pleasures  by  those  who  have  suddenly  won  it.  It  is 
spent  in  somewhat  coarse  pleasures  by  those  who  have 
suddenly  won  it  at  Liverpool  and  Manchester,  as  well  as 
at  New  York.  One  praise,  at  any  rate,  American  litera- 
ture may  claim — it  is  pure.  Ilere  the  spirit  of  the  Pil- 
grims still  holds  its  own.  The  public  opinion  of  a  free 
country  is  a  restraining  as  well  as  a  moving  power.  On 
the  other  hand,  despotism,  political  or  ecclesiastical,  docs 
not  extinguish  human  liberty.  That  it  may  take  away 
the  liberty  of  reason,  it  gives  the  liberty  of  sense.  It 
says  to  man,  Do  what  3'ou  will,  sin  and  shrive  3'ourself ; 
but  eschew  political  improvement,  and  turn  away  your 
thoughts  from  truth. 


20-i  ON   THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

The  history  of  the  Puritan  Church  in  New  England 
is  one  of  enduring  glory,  of  transient  shame.  Of  tran- 
sient shame,  because  there  was  a  moment  of  intolerance 
and  persecution ;  of  enduring  glory,  because  intolerance 
and  persecution  instantly  gave  way  to  perfect  liberty  of 
conscience  and  free  allegiance  to  the  truth.  The  found- 
ers of  New  England  were  Independents.  AVhen  they 
went  forth,  their  teacher  had  solemnly  charged  them  to 
follow  him  no  farther  than  they  had  seen  him  follow  his 
Master.  He  had  pointed  to  the  warning  example  of 
churches  which  fancied  that  because  Calvin  and  Luther 
were  great  and  shining  lights  in  their  times,  therefore 
there  could  be  no  light  vouchsafed  to  man  after  theirs. 
"  I  beseech  you  remember  it ;  it  is  an  article  of  your 
Church  covenant  that  you  be  ready  to  receive  whatever 
truth  shall  be  made  known  to  you  from  the  written  word 
of  God."  It  was  natural  that  the  Puritan  settlement 
should  at  first  be  a  Church  rather  than  a  State.  To  have 
given  a  share  in  its  lands  or  its  political  franchise  to 
those  who  were  not  of  its  communion  would  have  been 
to  make  the  receiver  neither  rich  nor  powerful,  and  the 
giver,  as  he  might  well  think,  poor  and  weak  indeed. 
But  the  Communion  grew  into  an  Establishment;  and 
the  Puritan  Synod,  as  well  as  the  Council  of  Trent,  must 
needs  forget  that  it  was  the  child  of  change,  and  build 
its  barrier,  though  not  a  very  unyielding  one,  across  the 
river  which  flows  forever.  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut, 
New  Ilampshire,  were  partly  secessions  from  IMassachn- 
setts,  led  by  those  who  longed  for  perfect  freedom ;  and 
in  fairness  to  Massachusetts  it  must  be  said  that  among 
those  seceders  were  some  in  whose  eyes  freedom  herself 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.  205 

was  scarcely  free.  The  darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages 
must  bear  the  blame  if  not  a  few  were  dazzled  by  the  sud- 
den return  of  light.  The  name  of  Providence,  the  capi- 
tal of  Ehode  Island,  is  the  thank-offering  of  Eoger  Wil- 
liams, to  whose  wayward  and  disputatious  spirit  much 
may  be  forgiven  if  he  first  clearly  proclaimed,  and  first 
consistenly  practiced,  the  perfect  doctrine  of  liberty  of 
conscience,  the  sole  guarantee  for  real  religion,  the  sole 
trustworthy  guardian  of  the  truth.  That  four  Quakers 
should  have  suffered  death  in  a  colony  founded  by  fugi- 
tives from  a  persecution  is  a  stain  on  the  history  of  the 
free  churches  of  America,  like  the  stain  on  the  robe  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  like  the  stain  on  the  escutcheon  of  the 
Black  Prince.  It  is  true  there  was  no  Inquisition,  no 
searching  of  conscience ;  that  the  persecutors  warned 
their  victims  away,  and  sought  to  be  quit  of  them,  not  to 
take  their  blood ;  that  the  Quakers  thrust  themselves  on 
their  fate  in  their  frenzied  desire  for  martyrdom.  All  this 
at  most  renders  less  deep  by  one  degree  the  dye  of  relig- 
ious murder.  The  weapon  was  instantly  wrested  from 
the  hand  of  fanaticism  by  the  humane  instinct  of  a  free 
people,  and  the  blood  of  those  four  victims  sated  in  the 
New  World  the  demon  who,  in  the  Old  World,  between 
persecutions  and  religious  wars,  has  drunk  the  blood  of 
millions,  and  is  scarcely  sated  yet.  If  the  robe  of  religion 
in  the  New  World  was  less  rich  than  in  the  Old,  it  was 
all  but  pure  of  those  red  stains,  compared  with  which  the 
stains  upon  the  robe  of  worldly  ambition,  scarlet  though 
they  be,  are  white  as  wool.  In  the  New  World  there 
was  no  Inquisition,  no  St.  Bartholomew,  no  Thirty  Years' 
War;  in  the  New  AVorld  there  was  no  Voltaire.     If  we 


206  ON  THE   FOUNDATION  OF 

would  do  Voltaire  justice,  criminal  and  fatal  as  his  de- 
structive levity  was,  we  have  only  to  read  his  "  Cry  of 
Innocent  Blood,"  and  we  shall  see  that  the  thing  he  as- 
sailed was  not  Christianity,  much  less  God.-  The  Ameri- 
can sects,  indeed,  soon  added  to  the  number  of  those  vari- 
ations of  the  Protestant  churches  which,  contrasted  with 
the  majestic  unity  of  Kome,  furnished  a  proud  argument 
to  Bossuet.  Ilad  Bossuet  lived  to  see  what  came  forth 
at  the  Eevolution  from  under  the  unity  of  the  Church  of 
France,  he  might  have  doubted  whether  unity  was  so 
united;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he  had  seen  the  practi- 
cal union  of  the  free  churches  of  America  for  the  weight- 
ier matters  of  religion,  which  De  Tocqueville  observed, 
he  might  have  doubted  whether  variation  was  so  various. 
It  would  have  been  too  much  to  ask  a  Bossuet  to  consid- 
er whether,  looking  to  the  general  dealings  of  Providence 
with  man,  the  variations  of  free  and  conscientious  inquir- 
ers are  an  absolute  proof  that  free  and  conscientious  in- 
quiry is  not  the  road  to  religious  truth. 

In  Maryland,  Roman  Catholicism,  itself,  having  tasted 
of  the  cup  it  had  made  others  drink  to  the  dregs,  and 
being  driven  to  the  asylum  of  oppressed  consciences, 
proclaimed  the  principle  of  toleration.  In  Maryland  the 
Church  of  Alva  and  Torquemada  grew,  bloodless  and 
blameless;  and  thence  it  has  gone  forth,  as  it  was  in  its 
earlier  and  more  apostolic  hour,  to  minister  to  the  now 
large  Roman  Catholic  population  of  the  United  States 
whatever  of  good  and  true,  in  the  great  schism  of  hu- 
manity, may  have  remained  on  the  worse  and  falser  side. 
For  in  Maryland  it  had  no  overgrown  wealth  and  power 
to  defend  against  the  advance  of  truth.     Bigotry,  the 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.  207 

mildest  of  all  vices,  has  the  worst  things  laid  to  her  charge. 
That  wind  of  free  discipline  which,  to  use  Bacon's  image, 
winnows  the  chaff  of  error  from  the  grain  of  truth,  is  in 
itself  welcome  to  man  as  the  breeze  of  evening.  It  is 
when  it  threatens  to  winnow  away,  not  the  chaff  of  error 
alone,  but  princely  bishoprics  of  Strasburg  and  Toledo, 
that  its  breath  becomes  pestilence,  and  Christian  love  is 
compelled  to  torture  and  burn  the  infected  sheep,  in  or- 
der to  save  from  infection  the  imperiled  flock. 

There  have  been  wild  religious  sects  in  America.  But 
can  not  history  show  sects  as  wild  in  the  Old  World  ? 
Is  not  Mormonism  itself  fed  by  the  wild  apocalyptic  vis- 
ions, and  the  dreams  of  a  kinder  and  happier  social  state, 
which  haunt  the  peasantry  in  the  more  neglected  parts 
of  our  own  country?  Have  not  the  wildest  and  most 
fanatical  sects  in  history  arisen  when  the  upper  classes 
have  turned  religion  into  policy,  and  left  the  lower  class- 
es, who  knew  nothing  of  policy,  to  guide  or  misguide 
themselves  into  the  truth  ? 

New  England  was  fast  peopled  by  the  flower  of  the 
Puritan  party,  and  the  highest  Puritan  names  were  blend- 
ed with  its  history.  Among  its  elective  governors  was 
Vane,  even  then  wayward  as  pure,  even  then  suspected 
of  being  more  Republican  than  Puritan.  It  saw  also  the 
darker  presence  of  Hugh  Peters.  While  the  day  went 
hard  with  freedom  and  the  Protestant  cause  in  England, 
the  tide  set  steadily  westward ;  it  turned,  when  the  hour 
of  retaliation  came,  to  the  great  Armageddon  of  West- 
minster and  Naseby;  after  the  Restoration  it  set  to  the 
West  again.  In  New  England  Puritanism  continued  to 
reign  with  all  that  was  solemn,  austere,  strange  in  its 


208  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

spirit,  manners,  language,  garb,  when  in  England  its  do- 
minion, degenerating  into  tyranny,  had  met  with  a  half- 
merited  overthrow.  In  New  England  three  of  the  judges 
of  Charles  I.  found  a  safer  refuge  than  Ilolland  could  af- 
ford, and  there  one  of  them  lived  to  see  the  scales  once 
more  hung  out  in  heaven,  the  better  part  of  his  own 
cause  triumphant  once  more,  and  "William  sit  on  the 
Protector's  throne. 

Among  the  emigrants  were  clergymen,  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  scholars,  high-born  men  and  women,  for  in 
that  moving  age  the  wealthiest  often  vied  with  the  poor- 
est in  indifference  to  worldly  interest  and  devotion  to  a 
great  cause.  Even  peers  of  the  Puritan  party  thought 
of  becoming  citizens  of  Massachusetts,  but  had  enough 
of  the  peer  in  them  to  desire  still  to  have  an  hereditary 
seat  in  the  councils  of  the  state.  Massachusetts  answered 
this  demand  by  the  hand  of  one  who  had  himself  made  a 
great  sacrifice,  and  without  republican  bluster:  "When 
God  blesseth  any  branch  of  any  noble  or  generous  family 
with  a  spirit  and  gifts  fit  for  government,  it  would  be  a 
taking  of  God's  name  in  vain  to  put  such  a  talent  under 
a  bushel,  and  a  sin  against  the  honor  of  magistracy  to 
neglect  such  in  our  public  elections.  But  if  God  should 
not  delight  to  furnish  some  of  their  posterity  with  gifts 
fit  for  magistracy,  we  should  enforce  them  rather  to  re- 
proach and  prejudice  than  exalt  them  to  honor,  if  we 
should  call  those  forth  whom  God  doth  not  to  public  au- 
thority." The  Venetian  seems  to  be  the  only  great  aris- 
tocracy in  history  the  origin  of  wliich  is  not  traceable  to 
the  accident  of  conquest;  and  the  origin  even  of  the 
Venetian  aristocracy  may  perhaps  be  traced  to  the  acci- 


THE  AMERICAN   COLONIES.  209 

dent  of  prior  settlement  and  the  contagious  example  of 
neighboring  states.  That  which  has  its  origin  in  acci- 
dent may  prove  useful  and  live  long;  it  may  even  sur- 
vive itself  under  another  name,  as  the  Eoman  patriciate, 
as  the  Norman  nobility  survived  themselves  under  the 
'form  of  a  mixed  aristocracy  of  birth,  political  influence, 
and  wealth.  But  it  can  flourish  only  in  its  native  soil. 
Transplant  it,  and  it  dies.  The  native  soil  of  feudal  aris- 
tocracy is  a  feudal  kingdom,  with  great  estates  held  to- 
gether by  the  law  or  custom  of  primogeniture  in  succes- 
sion to  land.  The  New  England  colonies  rejected  primo- 
geniture with  the  other  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  adopted  the  anti-feudal  custom  of  equal  inheritance, 
under  the  legal  and  ancestral  name  of  gavelkind.  It 
was  Saxon  England  emerging  from  the  Norman  rule. 
This  rule  of  succession  to  property,  and  the  equality  with 
which  it  is  distributed,  are  the  basis  of  the  republican  in- 
stitutions of  New  England.  To  transfer  those  institu- 
tions to  countries  where  that  basis  does  not  exist  would 
be  almost  as  absurd  as  to  transfer  to  modern  society  the 
Eoman  laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables  or  the  Capitularies  of 
Charlemagne, 

In  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  settlements 
formed  by  the  energy  of  Dutch  and  Swedish  Protest- 
antism have  been  absorbed  by  the  greater  energy  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons.  The  rising  empire  of  his  faith  beyond 
the  Atlantic  did  not  fail  to  attract  the  soaring  iraagina- 
tion  of  Gustavus;  it  was  in  his  thoughts  when  he  set  out 
for  Littzcn.  But  the  most  remarkable  of  the  American 
colonics,  after  the  New  England  group,  is  Pennsylvania. 
We  arc  rather  surprised,  on  looking  at  the  portrait  of  the 


210  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

gentle  and  eccentric  founder  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
to  see  a  very  comely  youth  dressed  in  complete  armor. 
Penn  was  a  Ligbly  educated  and  accomplished  gentle- 
man, heir  to  a  fine  estate,  and  to  all  the  happiness  and 
beauty,  which  he  was  not  without  a  heart  to  feel,  of  En- 
glish manorial  life.  "  You  are  an  ingenious  gentleman,'^ 
said  a  magistrate  before  whom  he  was  brought  for  his 
Quaker  extravagances ;  "why  do  you  make  yourself  un- 
happy by  associating  with  such  a  simple  j)cople?"  In 
the  Old  World  he  could  only  hope  to  found  a  society ; 
in  the  New  World  he  might  hope  to  found  a  nation,  of 
which  the  law  should  be  love.  The  Constitution  he 
framed  for  Philadelphia,  on  pure  republican  principles, 
was  to  be  "  for  the  support  of  power  in  reverence  with 
the  people,  and  to  secure  the  people  from  the  abuse  of 
power.  For  liberty  without  obedience  is  confusion,  and 
obedience  without  liberty  is  slavery."  He  excluded 
himself  and  his  heirs  from  the  founder's  banc  of  author- 
ity over  his  own  creation.  It  is  as  a  reformer  of  crim- 
inal law,  perhaps,  that  he  has  earned  his' brightest  and 
most  enduring  fame.  The  codes  and  customs  of  feudal 
Europe  were  lavish  of  servile  or  plebeian  blood.  In  the 
republic  of  New  England  the  life  of  every  man  was  pre- 
cious, and  the  criminal  law  was  for  more  humane  than 
that  of  Europe,  though  tainted  with  the  dark  Judaism  of 
the  Puritans,  with  the  cruel  delusion  which  they  shared 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  on  the  subject  of  witchcraft, 
and  with  their  overstrained  severity  in  punishing  crimes 
of  sense.  Penn  confined  capital  punishment  to  the  crimes 
of  treason  and  murder.  Two  centuries  afterward,  the  ar- 
guments of  Ilomilly  and  the  legislation  of  Peel  convinced 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  211 

Perm's  native  country  that  these  reveries  of  his,  the  dic- 
tates of  wisdom  which  sprang  from  his  heart,  were  sober 
truth.  We  are  now  beginning  to  see  the  reality  of  an- 
other of  his  dreams,  the  dream  of  making  the  prison  not 
a  jail  only,  but  a  place  of  reformation.  Of  the  two  errors 
in  government,  that  of  treating  men  like  angels  and  that 
of  treating  them  like  beasts,  he  did  something  to  show 
that  the  one  to  which  he  leaned  was  the  less  grave,  for 
Philadelphia  grew  up  like  an  olive-branch  beneath  his 
fostering  hand. 

In  the  Carolinas,  the  old  settlement  of  Coligny  was  re- 
peopled  with  English,  Scotch,  Irish,  Germans,  Swiss,  the 
motley  elements  which  will  blend  with  Hollander  and 
Swede  to  form  in  America  the  most  mixed,  and,  on  one 
theory,  the  greatest  of  all  races.  The  philosophic  hand 
of  Locke  attempted  to  create  for  this  colony  a  highly 
elaborate  Constitution,  judged  at  the  time  a  masterpiece 
of  political  art.  Georgia  bears  the  name  of  the  second 
king  of  that  line  whose  third  king  was  to  lose  all.  Its 
philanthropic  founder,  Oglethorpe,  struggled  to  exclude 
slavery,  but  an  evil  policy  and  the  neighborhood  of  the 
West  Indies  baffled  his  endeavors.  Here  Wesley  preach- 
ed, here  Whitfield ;  and  Whitfield,  too  anxious  to  avoid 
offense  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  save  souls,  paid  a 
homage  to  the  system  of  slavery,  and  made  a  sophistical 
apology  for  it,  which  weigh  heavily  against  the  merits  of 
a  great  apostle  of  the  poor. 

For  some  time  all  the  colonies,  whatever  their  nominal 
government,  whether  they  were  under  the  crown,  under 
single  proprietors,  under  companies,  or  under  free  char- 
ters, enjoyed,  in  spite  of  chronic  negotiation  and  litigation 


212  ON  THE   FOUNDATION  OF 

with  the  powers  in  England,  a  large  measure  of  practical 
independence.  James  I.  was  weak ;  Charles  I.  and  Laud 
had  soon  other  things  to  think  of;  the  Long  Parliament 
were  disposed  to  be  arrogant,  but  the  Protector  was  mag- 
nanimous ;  and  finall}^,  Charles  IL,  careless  of  every  thing 
on  this  side  the  water,  was  still  more  careless  of  every 
thing  on  that  side,  and  Clarendon  was  not  too  stiff  for 
prerogative  to  give  a  liberal  charter  to  a  colony  of  which 
he  was  himself  a  patentee.  Royal  governors,  indeed, 
sometimes  tried  to  overact  the  king,  and  the  folly  of  Sir 
"William  Berkeley,  governor  of  Virginia,  all  but  forestall- 
ed, and  well  would  it  have  been  if  it  had  quite  forestalled, 
the  folly  of  Lord  North.  With  this  exception,  the  colo- 
nies rested  content  and  proud  beneath  the  shadow  of  En- 
gland, and  no  thought  of  a  general  confederation  or  ab- 
solute independence  ever  entered  into  their  minds.  As 
they  grew  rich,  we  tried  to  interfere  with  their  manufac- 
tures and  monopolize  their  trade.  It  was  unjust  and  it 
was  foolish.  The  proof  of  its  folly  is  the  noble  trade 
that  has  sprung  up  between  us  since  our  government 
lost  all  power  of  checking  the  course  of  nature.  But 
this  was  the  injustice  and  the  folly  of  the  time.  No  such 
excuse  can  be  made  for  the  attempt  to  tax  the  colonies 
— in  defiance  of  the  first  principles  of  English  govern- 
ment— begun  by  narrow-minded  incompetence  and  con- 
tinued by  insensate  pride.  It  is  miserable  to  see  what 
true  affection  was  there  flung  away.  Persecuted  and  ex- 
cited, the  founders  of  New  England,  says  one  of  their  his- 
torians, did  not  cry  Farewell  Rome,  Farewell  Babylon ! 
They  cried.  Farewell  dear  England  !  And  this  was  their 
spirit  even  far  into  the  fatal  quarrel.     "You  have  been 


THE   AMERICAN   COLONIES.  213 

told,"  they  said  to  the  British  Parliament,  after  the  sub- 
version of  the  chartered  liberties  of  Massachusetts,  "you 
have  been  told  that  we  are  seditious,  impatient  of  gov- 
ernment, and  desirous  of  independence.  Be  assured  that 
these  are  not  facts,  but  calumnies.  Permit  us  to  be  as 
free  as  yourselves,  and  we  shall  ever  esteem  a  union  with 
you  to  be  our  greatest  glory  and  our  greatest  happiness ; 
we  shall  ever  be  ready  to  contribute  all  in  our  power  to 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  emjDire ;  we  shall  consider  your 
enemies  as  our  enemies,  and  your  interest  as  our  own. 
But  if  you  are  determined  that  your  ministers  shall  wan- 
tonly sport  with  the  rights  of  mankind ;  if  neither  the 
voice  of  justice,  the  dictates  of  law,  the  principles  of  the 
Constitution,  nor  the  suggestions  of  humanity,  can  re- 
strain your  hands  from  shedding  human  blood  in  such 
an  impious  cause,  we  must  then  tell  you  that  we  will 
never  submit  to  be  '  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  wa- 
ter' for  any  nation  in  the  world."  What  was  this  but 
the  voice  of  those  who  framed  the  Petition  of  Eight  and 
the  Great  Charter  ?  Franklin  alone,  perhaps,  of  the  lead- 
ing Americans,  by  the  dishonorable  publication  of  an 
exasperating  correspondence,  which  he  had  improperly 
obtained,  shared  with  Grenvillc,  Townshend,  and  Lord 
North  the  guilt  of  bringing  this  great  disaster  on  the 
English  race.  There  could  be  but  one  issue  to  a  war  in 
which  England  was  fighting  against  her  better  self,  or 
rather  in  which  England  fought  on  one  side,  and  a  cor- 
rupt ministry  and  Parliament  on  the  other.  The  Parlia- 
ment of  that  day  was  not  national ;  and  though  the  na- 
tion was  excited  by  the  war  when  once  commenced,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  a  national  Parliament  would  have 
commenced  it.     The  great  national  leader  rejoiced  that 


214  ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF 

the  Americans  bad  resisted.  But  disease,  or  that  worse 
enemy  which  hovers  so  close  to  genius,  deprived  us  of 
Chatham  at  the  most  critical  hour.  One  thing  there  was 
in  that  civil  war*  on  which  both  sides  may  look  back 
with  pride.  In  spite  of  deep  provocation  and  intense 
bitterness,  in  spite  of  the  unwarrantable  employment  of 
foreign  troops  and  the  infamous  employment  of  Indians 
on  our  side,  and  the  exasperating  interference  of  the 
French  on  the  side  of  the  Americans,  the  struggle  was 
conducted  on  the  whole  with  great  humanity.  Com- 
pared with  the  French  Revolution,  it  was  a  contest  be- 
tween men  with  noble  natures  and  a  fight  between  infu- 
riated beasts.  Something,  too,  it  is  that  from  that  strug- 
gle should  have  arisen  the  character  of  Washington,  to 
teach  all  ages,  and  especially  those  which  are  inclined  to 
worship  violence,  the  greatness  of  moderation  and  civil 
duty.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  there  is  one  spectacle 
more  grateful  to  Heaven  than  a  good  man  in  adversity — 
a  good  man  successful  in  a  great  cause.  Deeper  happi- 
ness can  not  be  conceived  than  that  of  the  years  which 
Washington  passed  at  Mount  Vernon,  looking  back  upon 
a  life  of  arduous  command  held  without  a  selfish  thought, 
and  laid  down  without  a  stain. 

The  loss  of  the  American  colonies  was  perhaps,  in  it- 
self, a  gain  to  both  countries.  It  was  a  gain  as  it  eman- 
cipated commerce,  and  gave  free  course  to  those  recipro- 
cal streams  of  wealth  which  a  restrictive  policy  had  for- 
bidden to  flow.  It  was  a  gain  as  it  put  an  end  to  an  ob- 
solete tutelage,  which  tended  to  prevent  America  betimes 
to  walk  alone,  while  it  gave  England  only  the  puerile 
and  somewhat  dangerous  pleasure  of  reigning  over  those 
whom  she  did  not  and  could  not  govern,  but  whom  she 


THE   AMEEICAN  COLONIES.  215 

was  tempted  to  harass  and  insult.  A  source  of  military 
strength  colonies  can  hardly  be.  You  prevent  them 
from  forming  proper  military  establishments  of  their 
own,  and  you  drag  them  into  your  quarrels  at  the  price 
of  undertaking  their  defense.  The  inauguration  of  free 
trade  was  in  fact  the  renunciation  of  the  only  solid  ob- 
ject for  which  our  ancestors  clung  to  an  invidious  and 
perilous  supremacy,  and  exposed  the  heart  of  England  by 
scattering  her  fleets  and  armies  over  the  globe.  It  was 
not  the  loss  of  the  colonies,  but  the  quarrel,  that  was  one 
of  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  greatest  disaster  that  ever 
befell  the  English  race.  Who  would  not  give  up  Blen- 
heim and  Waterloo  if  only  the  two  Engiands  could  have 
parted  from  each  other  in  kindness  and  in  peace ;  if  our 
statesmen  could  have  had  the  wisdom  to  say  to  the 
Americans  generously  and  at  the  right  season,  "You  are 
Englishmen  like  ourselves ;  be,  for  your  own  happiness 
and  our  honor,  like  ourselves,  a  nation?"  But  English 
statesmen,  with  all  their  greatness,  have  seldom  known 
how  to  anticipate  necessity ;  too  often  the  sentence  of 
history  on  their  policy  has  been  that  it  was  wise,  just, 
and  generous,  but  "  too  late."  Too  often  have  they 
waited  for  the  teaching  of  disaster.  Time  will  heal  this, 
like  other  wounds.  In  signing  away  his  own  empire 
over  America,  George  III.  did  not  sign  away  the  empire 
of  English  liberty,  of  English  law,  of  English  literature, 
of  English  religion,  of  English  blood,  or  of  the  English 
tongue.  But,  though  the  wound  will  heal  —  and  that  it 
may  heal  ought  to  be  the  earnest  desire  of  the  whole 
English  name  —  history  can  never  cancel  the  fatal  page 
which  robs  England  of  half  the  glory  and  half  the  liap- 
piness  of  being  the  mother  of  a  great  nation. 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 


It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  a  student  finds  himself 
returning  from  the  alien  sphere  of  politics  to  the  conge- 
nial sphere  of  letters,  and  from  the  region  of  national  and 
party  divisions  to  the  fellowship  of  learning,  undivided 
and  perpetual.  It  is  with  especial  pleasure  than  an  En- 
glish student  of  history  finds  himself  in  the  company  of 
those  who  are  pursuing  the  same  study  in  America.  The 
members  of  the  Historical  Society,  kindly  recognizing  the 
bond  of  literary  kindred,  have  invited  mc  to  take  part  in 
their  proceedings  this  evening ;  and  I  am  told  that  I  shall 
not  be  selecting  an  unacceptable  theme  for  my  remarks 
in  directing  your  attention  to  some  points  connected  with 
the  history  of  one  of  the  great  Universities  of  our  com- 
mon race. 

The  name  of  Oxford  calls  up  at  once  the  image  of  ven- 
erable antiquity  embodied  in  all  the  architectural  beauty 
of  the  past.  To  the  historic  eye  the  city  is,  in  fact,  the 
annals  of  England  written  in  gray  stone.  And  those  an- 
nals are  a  varied  and  moving  tale.  If  you  measure  by 
mere  time,  the  antiquity  of  the  old  cities  of  Christendom 
is  but  a  span  compared  with  the  antiquity  of  Egypt ;  but 
if  you  measure  by  history,  it  is  rather  the  antiquity  of 

K 


218  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFOKD. 

Egypt  that  is  a  span.  "  Those  buildings  must  be  very 
old,"  said  an  American  visitor  to  bis  Oxford  host,  pointing 
to  a  very  black-looking  pile.  " No,"  was  the  reply;  "the 
color  of  the  stone  deceives  you ;  their  age  is  only  two 
hundred  years."  Two  hundred  years,  though  a  great  an- 
tiquity to  the  inhabitants  of  a  new  country,  are  but  as  the 
flight  of  a  weaver's  shuttle  to  the  age  of  the  Pyramids. 
It  is  by  another  measure  that  the  age  of  such  cities  as 
Oxford  must  be  meted.  Between  her  earliest  and  latest 
monuments  lies  the  whole  intellectual  history  of  Chris- 
tendom, from  the  very  infancy  of  raediieval  faith  to  this 
skeptical  maturity  (as  it  seems  to  us)  of  modern  science, 
together  with  all  the  political,  social,  and  ecclesiastical 
memories  which  intellectual  history  brings  in  its  train. 
Movements  and  reactions,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  contending 
and  fluctuating  thought,  have  left  their  traces  all  around. 
As  you  walk  those  streets,  you  see,  in  the  spirit  of  history. 
Duns  Scotus  and  Roger  Bacon,  Wickliffc,  Erasmus,  "Wol- 
sey,  the  chiefs  and  martyrs  of  the  Reformation,  Hooker, 
Laud,  Butler,  Shelley ;  while  you  meet  in  the  flesh  the 
leaders,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  great  Anglican — or  rath- 
er Romanizing — reaction,  and,  on  the  other,  the  leaders 
of  what  seems  likely  to  prove  a  second  and  more  com- 
plete Reformation. 

Nowhere  do  you  feel  more  intensely  the  power  of  the 
Past,  and  the  ascendency  of  the  dead  over  the  living. 
This  influence,  in  truth,  weighs  somewhat  too  heavily  on 
the  intellectual  life  of  Oxford,  while  it  is  too  feeble  in  the 
intellectual  life  of  a  new  country  like  this.  An  Oxford 
student  can  preserve  his  independence,  and  even  his  in- 
dividual activity  of  mind,  only  by  cultivating  a  very 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  219 

large  and  liberal  interest  in  the  general  fortunes  and  des- 
tinies of  humanity. 

ISTor  is  the  calmness  of  the  past  less  felt  in  Oxford  than 
its  power.  Thither  turn  your  steps,  if  you  desire  to  put 
off  for  a  time  the  excitement  of  the  passing  hour.  The 
keep  of  the  Norman  castle  is  that  from  which  the  Em- 
press Maud  made  her  escape  during  the  war  in  the  time 
of  Stephen.  Merton  College  is  a  memorial  of  the  Barons' 
war  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III. ;  Magdalen  of  the  wars  of 
the  Eoses.  Traces  of  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  strug- 
gle between  Charles  I.  and  the  Commons  are  every  where 
to  be  seen.  Over  the  gate  of  University  College  stands 
the  statue  of  James  II.,  who,  when  he  sojourned  within 
those  walls,  was  striking  the  last  blow  struck  by  a  Stuart 
king  for  the  Stuart  cause.  Five  civil  wars — with  their 
divisions,  that  seemed  eternal — their  hatreds,  that  seemed 
inextricable — all  turned  to  charitable  memories  and  tran- 
quil dust. 

This  spell  of  antiquity  is  potent  enough  to  overpower 
even  the  presence  of  youth.  When  I  left  Oxford,  in  the 
dead  quiet  of  the  summer  vacation,  the  colleges  lay  with 
their  gray  walls  on  their  broad  expanse  of  lawn,  and 
among  their  immemorial  trees,  still  and  pensive  as  a  vis- 
ion of  the  past.  Now  they  arc  full,  if  not  of  the  most 
profitable,  of  the  merriest  life  on  earth.  Active  forms 
move  about  the  quadrangles,  cheerful  voices  are  heard 
from  the  windows  which  surround  them.  In  the  morn- 
ing the  more  industrious  are  engaged  in  their  studies,  full 
of  the  intellectual  hopes  of  youth.  In  the  afternoon  there 
are  parties  going  forth  to  and  returning  from  their  sports. 
Then  the  windows  of  the  old  dining-halls  glow  with  a  rud- 


220  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

dy  light ;  and  soon  after  there  come  from  other  windows 
the  sounds  of  merriment,  which  do  not,  in  all  cases,  give 
place  to  the  stillness  of  the  student's  evening  task.  If  it 
were  summer,  we  should  have  parties  of  students  in  very 
unacademieal  costumes  coming  back  from  the  cricket- 
match  or  the  boat-race ;  and  if  a  victory  had  been  won, 
we  should  hear  it  celebrated  in  a  way  which  would  make 
the  old  walls  ring — though,  among  a  people  trained  to 
respect  authority,  the  apparently  uncontrollable  wildness 
of  the  evening's  festivities  easily  gives  way  to  order  in 
the  morning.  Yet  all  this  no  more  dispels  the  pensive- 
ncss  that  hangs  round  the  ancient  city  than  the  bright 
green  leaves  of  spring  dispel  the  sombre  tint  of  its  walls. 
The  impression,  on  the  contrary,  is  rather  made  more  in- 
tense by  the  contrast.  The  old  dial,  whose  shadow  has 
measured  out  So  many  lives,  will  soon  measure  out  these 
also,  little  as  youth  may  think  of  its  end.  The  old  clock 
will  soon  toll  away  this  generation,  as  it  has  tolled  away 
the  generations  that  are  gone.  On  the  college  books  are 
written  the  names  of  the  fathers  of  these  youths,  of  their 
grandfathers,  of  their  ancestors  for  centuries  past.  They 
too,  when  they  wrote  their  names  there,  were  young. 

Before  entering  on  the  history  of  Oxford,  it  will  be  as 
well,  for  the  benefit  of  such  of  my  hearers  as  may  not 
have  visited  England,  briefly  to  explain  the  character  of 
the  institution,  which,  though  nearly  identical  with  that 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  differs  essentially  from 
that  of  the  Universities  in  this  country,  and  from  that  of 
most,  if  not  all,  the  Universities  on  the  Continent  of  Eu- 
rope— the  possible  exception  being  the  Universities  of 
Spain.    The  University  of  Oxford  is  a  Federation  of  Col- 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  OXFORD.  221 

leges.  Each  college  is  a  separate  institution  for  the  pur- 
poses of  instruction  and  discipline,  has  its  own  governing 
body,  consisting  of  a  Ilead  (variously  styled  President, 
Principal,  Warden,  Provost,  Master,  and — in  the  case  of 
Christchurch — Dean)  and  Fellows ;  its  own  endowments, 
its  own  library,  lecture-rooms,  and  dining-hall ;  its  own 
domestic  chapel,  where  service  is  performed  by  its  own 
chaplains.  Each  has  also  its  own  code  of  statutes,  and 
the  power,  subject  to  those  statutes,  of  making  laws  for 
itself.  The  college  instructors,  called  Tutors,  are  gener- 
ally chosen  from  the  number  of  the  Fellows,  as  are  also 
the  administrators  of  college  discipline,  called  Deans  or 
Censors.  All  the  members  of  the  colleges  are  members 
of  the  University,  and  subject  to  University  government 
and  laws.  The  University  holds  the  public  examinations 
and  confers  the  degrees.  It  legislates,  through  its  Coun- 
cil and  Convocation,  on  what  may  be  called  Federal  sub- 
jects, and  administers  Federal  discipline  through  its  Vice- 
Chancellor  and  Proctors.  In  the  matter  of  discipline 
there  is,  I  believe,  a  speculative  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  the  Federal  jurisdiction  of  the  proctors  within  the  col- 
lege gates ;  but  the  bond  of  mutual  interest  between  all 
the  members  of  the  Federation  is  too  strong  to  allow  this 
or  any  state-right  question  ever  to  threaten  us  with  an 
academical  civil  war.  There  is  also  a  University  staff  of 
teachers  in  all  the  subjects  of  instruction,  called  the  Pro- 
fessors, to  whose  lectures  the  students  from  all  the  col- 
leges resort,  and  whose  duty  it  is  to  carry  the  instruction 
to  a  higher  point  than  it  can  be  carried  by  the  college 
tutors,  who  arc  mostly  younger  men,  not  permanently 
devoted  to  a  college  life,  but  intending  to  take  one  of  the 


222  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD. 

many  ecclesiastical  benefices  in  the  gift  of  the  colleges,  or 
to  embrace,  in  course  of  time,  some  other  active  calling. 
The  Federal  element  is  embodied  in  the  public  buildings 
of  the  University — the  Bodleian  Library  ;  the  Examina- 
tion Schools,  which  occupy  the  lower  part  of  the  same 
great  Tudor  quadrangle ;  the  Eadcliffc  Library,  from  the 
dome  of  which  the  best  view  of  the  city  is  obtained ; 
the  Convocation  House,  in  which  University  statutes  are 
passed  and  University  degrees  conferred ;  the  Theatre,  in 
which  the  memory  of  founders  and  benefactors  is  cele- 
brated at  the  gay  ceremony  of  the  Summer  Commemora- 
tion, prize  compositions  recited,  and  honorary  degrees  be- 
stowed on  distinguished  visitors ;  the  University  Muse- 
um ;  the  University  Press ;  and,  above  all,  the  University 
Church  of  St.  Mary,  which,  with  its  beautiful  spire,  crowns 
the  Academic  City,  and  in  which  sermons  are  preached 
to  the  assembled  University,  after  the  hour  of  college 
chapel,  from  a  pulpit  not  unfamed  in  the  annals  of  relig- 
ious thought. 

The  mainspring  of  the  system,  as  regards  education, 
lies  in  the  University  Examinations  for  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts.  At  these  examinations  the  majority 
of  the  students  seek  only  to  attain  the  standard  required 
for  an  ordinary,  or  "pass"  degree.  The  more  aspiring  be- 
come candidates  for  "honors,"  and  obtain  a  ])lacc  in  the 
first,  or  one  of  the  lower  classes,  according  to  their  merits. 
The  publication  of  these  class-lists  is,  as  might  be  expect- 
ed, the  great  event  of  University  life,  and  it  is  not  an  in- 
significant event  in  the  domestic  and  social  life  of  En- 
gland. The  training  of  those  who  read  for  high  honors  at 
Oxford  or  Cambridge  is  probably  the  severest  that  youth 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  223 

any  where  undergoes,  and  it  is  prolonged,  generally  speak- 
ing, to  the  age  of  twenty-two.  The  system  of  competition 
is  not  carried  quite  so  high  at  Oxford  as  at  Cambridge, 
where  the  candidates  are  not  only  divided  into  classes,  but 
arranged  in  each  class  in  their  order  of  merit ;  whereas  at 
Oxford  they  are  only  divided  into  classes,  and  the  names 
arranged  alphabetically  in  each  class.  Whether  such 
strong  stimulants  of  youthful  ambition,  and  such  marked 
distinctions  for  youthful  attainment  would  be  necessary  or 
desirable  in  a  perfect  state  of  things,  is  perhaps  a  doubtful 
question.  But  in  English  society  as  it  is,  the  intellectual 
lionors  thus  awarded  by  national  authority  are  useful  as 
a  counterpoise,  however  imperfect,  to  the  artificial  distinc- 
tions of  hereditary  rank  and  wealth.  Nor  can  it  be  de- 
nied that  the  class -lists  have  given  England  men  in  all 
departments,  from  theology  to  finance,  whose  high  train- 
ing has  lent  loftiness  to  their  own  character  and  aspira- 
tions, and  to  the  character  and  aspirations  of  their  nation. 
The  College  Fellowships,  which  are  bestowed  by  exam- 
ination, and  to  which  stipends  are  attached,  averaging 
about  £200,  or  $1000,  a  year,  form  additional  and  more 
substantial  prizes  for  exertion  among  the  flower  of  our 
students,  and  it  is  in  the  competition  for  these  that  the 
highest  intellectual  efforts  of  all  are  probably  made.  Our 
almost  exclusive  subjects  of  instruction,  till  recently,  were 
the  classics,  with  ancient  philosophy  and  ancient  history, 
mathematics  being  recognized,  and  by  some  of  our  stu- 
dents carried  to  a  high  point,  but  not  held  in  the  same 
honor,  though  at  Cambridge  they  were  the  dominant 
study,  Eecently,  by  an  academic  revolution,  something 
like  that  which  substituted  the  classical  for  the  scholastic 


224  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

system  in  the  sixteenth  century,  we  have  thrown  open 
our  doors  to  physical  science,  modern  history,  jurispru- 
dence, and  political  economy,  to  which  honors  are  now 
awarded  legally,  equal  to  those  conferred  on  classics, 
though  classics  still,  practically,  retain  the  foremost  place. 
The  degrees  higher  than  that  of  Bachelor  of  Arts — that 
of  Master  of  Arts,  and  those  of  Bachelor  or  Doctor  of 
Theology,  Civil  Law,  or  Medicine — are  rather  marks  of 
academical  standing  than  rewards  of  intellectual  exertion, 
though  there  is  an  examination  for  the  degree  in  Civil 
Law,  and  one  of  a  more  effective  character  for  the  degree 
in  Medicine.  The  degree  of  Doctor  of  Civil  Law  is  con- 
ferred as  an  honorary  mark  of  distinction  on  illustrious 
visitors  of  all  kinds — generals,  admirals,  politicians,  and 
diplomatists,  as  well  as  men  of  letters  or  science.  Law 
and  Medicine,  of  which  the  Universities  were  the  schools 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  are  now  studied,  the  first  in  the 
chambers  of  London  barristers,  the  second  in  the  great 
London  hospitals.  Of  Theology  England  has  no  regular 
school.  The  Universities,  which  were  once  places  of  pro- 
fessional as  well  as  of  general  training  in  England,  as  they 
arc  still  on  the  Continent,  are  now  in  England  places  of 
general  training  alone.  They  are  the  final  schools  of 
those  among  our  English  youth  who  can  afford  to  give 
themselves  the  advantage,  and  pay  to  their  country  the 
tribute  of  a  long  liberal  education. 

It  is  still  a  disputc<l  question  whether  the  Universities 
belong  to  the  Established  Church  or  to  the  nation.  The 
Dissenters  have  recently  been  admitted  by  Parliament  to 
the  Bachelor's  degree.  An  effort  is  now  being  made, 
which  has   occasioned  a  pretty  sharp   struggle   in  the 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  225 

House  of  Commons,  to  throw  open  to  them  the  Master's 
degree,  which  would  make  them  members  of  Convoca- 
tion, the  governing  body  of  the  University.  The  Fellow- 
ships of  colleges  are  all  confined  to  members  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church.  If  England  seems,  in  this  and  some 
other  respects,  now  to  lag  behind  other  nations  in  the 
march  of  liberty,  it  is  partly  because  at  one  time  she  had 
so  much  outstripped  them  all. 

The  Colleges  still  retain  something  of  their  mediasval 
and  monastic  character,  though  modern  life  and  Protest- 
antism have,  to  a  great  extent,  broken  through  the  found- 
er's rule.  The  Fellows — such  of  them,  at  least,  as  are  in 
residence — still  live  partly  in  common,  dining  together  in 
the  college  hall,  where  they  sit  at  the  upper  end,  on  a 
kind  of  dais,  while  the  students  sit  at  long  tables  down 
the  hall,  and  retiring  together  after  dinner  to  their  "com- 
mon-room" (an  institution  unknown  to  our  austere  found- 
ers), to  take  dessert  and  wine,  and  talk  over  the  subjects 
of  the  day.  What  is  of  more  importance,  they  still  for- 
feit their  Fellowships  on  marriage ;  whence,  as  was  be- 
fore mentioned,  few  of  them  settle  down  permanently  to 
college  life,  which,  though  j)leasant  for  a  time,  becomes 
very  dreary  as  a  man  grows  old,  and  when  all  the  com- 
panions of  his  youth  are  gone.  The  jealous  gates  of  the 
old  monastic  quadrangles,  however,  which,  according  to 
the  founders'  statutes,  were  to  admit  no  female  form  more 
dangerous  than  that  of  an  elderly  laundress,  have  quite 
forgotten  their  ungracious  duty,  as  a  visitor  to  our  sum- 
mer festival  of  Commemoration  will  easily  see. 

One  of  the  most  striking  objects  in  the  High  Street  is 
a  long,  dark  range  of  buildings,  in  a  late  Gothic  style, 

K2 


226  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFOKD. 

called  University  College  —  a  name  wbicli  increases  to 
strangers  the  diHiculty  of  understanding  the  relations  be- 
tween the  colleges  and  the  University.  This  is  the  old- 
est of  our  existing  foundations,  and  its  reputed  founder  is 
King  Alfred,  whose  effigy  appears  in  the  hall  and  com- 
mon-room, beside  those  of  Eldon,  Stowell,  and  Windham, 
the  later  and  more  authentic  worthies  of  the  college.  Its 
real  founder,  however,  was  unquestionably  William  of 
Durham,  a  learned  and  munificent  ecclesiastic  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  who  bequeathed  a  sum  of  money  to  the 
University  for  the  support  of  students  in  theology,  and 
whoso  theologians  were  afterward  settled  by  the  Univer- 
sity on  the  spot,  though  in  a  humbler  house.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  Oxford,  as  one  of  the  chief  cities  of 
Saxon  England,  was  a  place  of  education  in  the  time  and 
under  the  auspices  of  Alfred,  whose  birthplace,  Wantage, 
■was  close  by.  But  no  authentic  evidence  definitely  con- 
nects the  great  restorer  of  Anglo-Saxon  learning  and  in- 
stitutions with  the  University  or  any  of  its  foundations  ; 
though,  on  the  strength  of  spurious  testimony,  a  court  of 
law  has  actually  recognized  him  as  the  Founder,  and  his 
successors  on  the  throne  of  England  as  the  Visitors,  of 
the  college  founded  by  the  University  out  of  the  bequest 
of  William  of  Durham.  If  he  erected  or  revived  any 
schools  at  Oxford,  the  scythe  of  the  Norman  conquest 
passed  over  them.  Yet  William  of  Durham,  if  he  were 
now  alive,  would  scarcely  be  grieved  to  see  that  his 
foundation  had  become  a  monument  to  the  memory  of 
Alfred. 

We  may  more  reasonably  look  to  the  monasteries  of 
which  there  are  remains  at  Oxford  for  the  oriorin  of  the 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  227 

present  Universitj.  Learning  owes  a  tribute  to  the  beau- 
tiful ruins  of  these  houses  wherever  they  are  found,  for 
on  them  first  her  ark  rested  when  the  waters  of  the  bar- 
barian deluge  were  beginning  to  subside.  In  their  clois- 
ters her  expiring  lamp  was  first  revived ;  from  them  its 
rays  first  shone  out  again  over  the  dark  waste.  The 
Abbey  of  Bee,  in  Normandy,  which  sent  forth  Lanfranc, 
the  precursor  of  the  great  civilians,  and  Anselm,  the  pre- 
cursor of  the  great  schoolmen,  was  itself  the  germ  of  a 
University. 

Certain,  however,  it  is  that  in  the  reigns  of  the  Norman 
successors  of  William  the  Conqueror  there  was  a  Univer- 
sity at  Oxford,  and  that  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  there 
was  a  great  University — one  chronicler  says  a  University 
with  thirty  thousand  students.  This  is  scarcely  credible. 
But  the  mediasval  city  swarmed  and  overflowed  with  ar- 
dent youths  flocking  to  the  sole  source  of  knowledge  and 
the  great  avenue  of  promotion.  A  bastion  in  the  city 
walls  was  rented,  as  appears  by  the  city  records,  for  the 
habitation  of  students.  The  University  was  then  not 
only  a  place  of  liberal  education,  but  the  school  of  the 
great  professions,  which,  as  we  have  said,  have  since  mi- 
grated to  the  capital.  The  whole  academical  course  at 
that  period,  up  to  the  highest  degree  in  any  one  of  the 
Faculties,  occupied  sixteen  years.  There  were  also  gram- 
mar-schools for  boys,  so  that  all  ages  were  mingled  to- 
gether— not  only  all  ages,  but  natives  of  all  countries. 
There  was  then  not  only  an  England,  a  France,  a  Ger- 
many, an  Italy,  a  Spain,  but  a  Christendom  with  one 
Church,  one  Pope,  one  Priesthood,  one  ecclesiastical  law, 
one  language  for  all  educated  men,  and  a  group  of  com- 


228  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

mon  Universities  which  were  now  appearing  in  the  differ- 
ent lands  of  Europe,  like  stars  coming  out,  one  by  one,  in 
the  mediaeval  night.  Students  went  from  one  University 
to  another,  learning  at  each  the  special  kind  of  knowl- 
edge for  which  each  was  famous.  French  youths  came 
to  the  scholastic  disputations  of  Oxford,  and  Oxford  doc- 
tors taught  in  the  schools  of  Paris.  Perhaps  the  love  of 
wandering,  not  yet  quelled  in  the  half-civilized  heart,  had 
something  to  do  with  the  migrations  of  the  student,  as  it 
had  with  the  expeditions  of  the  pilgrim. 

The  studies  were,  first,  "Arts,"  including  all  the  sub- 
jects of  general  instruction  known  at  the  time ;  and  aft- 
erward Theology,  Law,  or  Medicine.  Law  was  the  great 
study  of  those  who  desired  to  make  their  fortunes  and  to 
rise  in  the  world.  Its  monks,  who  struggled  hard  to  win 
the  great  places  of  learning  for  themselves  and  for  the 
cause  of  which  they  were  the  champions,  wished  to  re- 
lease students  in  Theology  from  the  necessity  of  proceed- 
ing through  "Arts."  But  the  academic  spirit  seems  to 
have  prevailed,  and  to  have  enforced  the  previous  course 
of  general  study  as  a  preparation  for  the  theologian ;  a 
sound  decision,  if  the  theologian  is  to  know  man  as  well 
as  God ;  or,  to  put  the  case  more  truly,  if  to  know  God 
he  must  know  man.  The  cardinal  study,  however,  and 
the  particular  glory  of  Oxford,  was  the  scholastic  philos- 
ophy, a  study  condemned  by  Bacon,  and  in  its  superan- 
nuated decrepitude  justly  condemned,  as  bearing  no  fruit. 
If  it  bore  no  fruit,  it  at  least,  in  the  mind  of  the  mcdircval 
student,  bore  the  leaves  and  blossoms  of  most  romantic 
hope.  But  we  have  ceased  to  regard  it  with  contempt. 
We  know  that,  in  its  hour,  it  played  no  mean  part  in 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  229 

training  the  intellect  of  man.  And  if  it  bore  no  material 
fruits,  it  bore  the  moral  fruit  of  a  faith  in  the  world  of 
ideas,  and  a  deep  interest  in  the  unseen.  It  belongs  to 
the  spiritual,  though  chimerical  age  of  monasticism,  ca- 
thedrals, and  crusades.  Duns  Scotus,  the  "  Subtle  Doc- 
tor," Alexander  Hales,  the  "Irrefragable  Doctor,"  and 
Ockham,  the  great  Nominalist,  were  among  the  glories  of 
scholastic  Oxford;  and  they  are  glories  the  lustre  of 
which  is  now  dimmed,  but,  while  science  and  humanity 
are  grateful  to  him  who  serves  them  in  his  allotted  place 
and  time,  will  never  die.  Wickliflfe  himself  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  schoolmen.  In  the  keen  reasonings 
of  the  school  philosophy  he  sharpened  the  controversial 
weapons  with  which  he  was  to  assail  the  errors  and  cor- 
ruptions of  the  Church.  In  its  high  dreams  he  formed 
his  ideal  theory  of  a  Christian  world. 

There  is  a  name  in  the  annals  of  mediaeval  Oxford 
more  famous  in  philosophy  than  any  of  these.  The  good 
taste  of  the  last  century  pulled  down,  under  a  local  im- 
provement act,  an  arch  which  spanned  Folly  Bridge,  and 
contained  a  chamber  hallowed  by  tradition  as  Friar  Ba- 
con's study.  There,  according  to  the  legend,  the  great 
and  formidable  Franciscan,  the  man  of  too  much  light  for 
a  dark  age,  the  father  and  protomartyr  of  modern  science, 
pursued  studies  which,  in  his  case  at  least,  had  a  practical 
and  fruitful,  as  well  as  a  metaphysical  side.  There,  as 
wondering  ignorance  fancied,  the  mighty  master  of  the 
Black  Art,  now  called  Science,  and  the  study  of  the  laws 
of  God,  held  forbidden  converse  with  the  Brazen  Head. 
And  there,  we  may  more  easily  believe,  was  compounded 
for  the  first  time  a  black  powder  which  possessed  a  mag- 


230  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

ical  power  indeed,  and  at  the  first  explosion  of  whicli  the 
walls  of  the  feudal  castle  fell  to  the  ground. 

The  teaching  was  of  the  professional  kind,  the  oral  lec- 
tures of  the  professor  being,  in  that  age,  not  a  mere  sup- 
plement to  books,  but  the  only  great  source  of  knowl- 
edge, the  only  way  of  publishing  new  ideas.  The  lec- 
tures were  given,  not  in  regular  lecture-rooms,  but  in 
church  porches,  and  wherever  the  lecturer  could  find 
space  and  shelter,  while  eager  multitudes  crowded  to  hear 
the  great  teacher'of  the  day.  Knowledge  has  since  been 
drunk  from  purer  springs,  but  never,  perhaps,  with  a 
thirstier  lip.  The  scholars  also  exercised  their  logical 
powers,  and  at  once  displayed  their  acquirements  and 
gained  a  more  thorough  mastery  over  them  by  the  prac- 
tice of  disputations — the  tournaments  of  the  intellectual 
knight — with  a  Moderator  as  the  umpire,  to  rule  the  lists 
and  adjudge  the  prize. 

In  modern  times  the  University  of  Oxford,  like  every 
thing  connected  with  the  Anglican  Church,  has  been  Con- 
servative. She  has,  in  fact,  been  the  citadel  of  the  Con- 
servative party.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  her  heroic 
age,  her  leaning,  both  in  religion  and  politics,  was  to  the 
Liberal  side ;  and  she  belonged  not  to  the  reactionary,  but 
to  the  progressive  clement  of  the  media3val  Church  and 
society — to  that  which  prepared,  not  to  that  whicli  strug- 
gled to  avert,  and  afterward  to  cancel,  the  Keformation. 
There  was  a  sympathy  for  the  doctrines  of  the  Wal- 
denscs ;  there  was  a  strong  sympathy,  at  least  among  the 
younger  students,  for  the  doctrines  of  "Wickliftc.  The 
learned  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  Grossteste,  the  leading  man  of 
Oxford  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.,  was  the  head  of  a  par- 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  231 

tj  in  the  Church  and  nation  which  protested  against  the 
encroachments  and  the  corruptions  of  the  court  of  Eome, 
and  died  anathematized  by  the  Pope,  sainted  as  a  patriot 
by  the  people.  This  party  of  independence  in  the  Church 
■was  closely  connected  with  the  party  of  constitutional 
liberty  in  the  state;  and  Oxford,  afterward  the  strong- 
hold of  Charles  I.,  was  then  the  strong-hold  of  De  Mont- 
fort.  Not  the  hearts  only  of  Oxford  students  were  with 
the  champions  of  liberty,  but  their  arms ;  and  at  the  de- 
fense of  Northampton  they  fought  against  the  King  un- 
der their  own  banner,  and,  according  to  the  chronicles, 
fought  well.  From  the  spirit  of  Oxford,  it  has  been  truly 
said,  if  not  from  Oxford  itself,  emanated  the  famous  poet- 
ic pamphlet  in  favor  of  constitutional  government. 

"Nee  omnis  arctatio  privat  libertateni, 
Nee  omnis  distrietio  toUit  potestatem. 
Ad  quid  vult  libera  lex  rcges  aretari  ? 
Ne  possint  adultera  lege  maculari. 

"Et  hae  coarctatio  non  est  servitiuis; 
Sed  est  ampliatio  regiffi  virtutis. 
Igitur  comniunitas  regni  consulatur; 
Et  quid  universitas  scntiat  sciatur. '' 

Let  the  believers  in  liberty  pray  for  us  that  we  may  have 
another  heroic  age. 

There  were  no  colleges  then.  The  students  lived  in 
hostels  or  halls,  most  of  which  were  afterward  absorbed 
by  the  spreading  buildings  of  the  colleges,  under  one  of 
the  Masters  of  Arts  or  Doctors  of  the  University,  select- 
ed as  their  tutor.  They  were  divided  into  nations,  or 
Northerners  and  Southerners,  according  to  the  part  of 
the  kingdom  from  which  they  came.     I  should  say  the 


232  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD, 

academical  community  in  those  days  resembled  rather  a 
modern  German  University  than  the  modern  Oxford,  if  I 
had  not  before  me  the  indignant  words  of  a  learned  writ- 
er who  protests  against  our  comparing  the  academic  ad- 
herents of  Grossteste  and  Dc  Montfort  with  "  the  bemud- 
dled  Burschen,  who  vapored  at  the  barricades  of  Berlin 
and  Vienna;"  and  declares  the  Oxford  scholars,  in  those 
golden  days,  were  characterized  as  much  by  the  spirit  of 
duty,  intelligence,  and  order,  as  the  Burschen  are  by  that 
of  anarchy  and  absurdity.  But  order  —  in  the  material 
sense  at  least  —  was  not  invariably  characteristic  of  the 
Oxford  scholar.  Our  modern  "  Town  and  Gown  rows" 
are  the  faint  and  attenuated  relics  of  the  desperate  affrays 
which  in  the  Middle  Ages  took  place  between  the  impet- 
uous students  of  the  University  and  the  strong-handed 
burghers  of  the  feudal  town.  A  penitential  procession, 
which  the  citizens  were  compelled  annually  to  perform, 
long  kept  alive  the  memory  of  one  of  the  bloodiest  of 
these  encounters.  There  were  fights  also,  and  sanguina- 
ry fights,  between  the  students  and  the  Jews,  who  had 
not  failed  to  come  in  considerable  force  to  a  University 
for  the  practice  of  usury,  or  to  draw  upon  themselves 
the  hatred  of  their  debtors — farther  inflamed  and  sancti- 
fied in  its  own  eyes  by  fanatical  antijiathy  to  the  misbe- 
liever. The  tragic  memory  of  a  great  massacre  attaches 
to  a  spot  called  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  the  site  of  the 
Old  Jewry,  now  occupied  by  New  Inn  Ilall.  Sometimes, 
again,  there  were  conflicts  between  the  two  "Nations" 
far  more  serious  than  those  between  the  clubs  in  a  mod- 
ern German  University ;  and  on  one  occasion  they  drew 
out  in  the  fields  near  the  town,  and  fought  a  ])itched  bat- 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  233 

tie  with  bows  and  arrows.  Papal  Legates  were  never 
welcome  visitors  among  the  English,  who  always,  in  their 
most  Catholic  times,  had  a  something  of  Protestantism 
and  a  good  deal  of  Teutonic  independence  in  their  hearts ; 
and  the  Lord  Legate  Otho,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
having  visited  Oxford  in  the  course  of  his  mission,  was 
— in  consequence  of  a  quarrel  between  his  cook  and  one 
of  the  hungry  scholars,  who  had  been  drawn  by  the 
steam  of  a  legate's  dinner  to  the  kitchen  —  set  upon  by 
the  academic  populace,  and  with  great  difficulty  escaped 
with  his  life.  The  royal  authority  in  those  feudal  times 
was  fitfully  interposed  to  punish  tumults  rather  than  pre- 
serve order.  That  concourse  of  students,  of  all  ranks 
and  nations,  not  a  few  of  them  mendicants,  was  no  doubt 
an  active-minded,  ill-governed,  inflammable  mass  —  the 
quintessence  of  the  intellect,  but  also  of  the  turbulence 
of  their  time. 

The  first  college,  and  the  prototype  of  all  the  rest,  both 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  was  founded  by  Walter  de 
Merton,  Chancellor  of  England  under  Henry  III.  and  Ed- 
ward L,  who  deserves  the  honor  due  to  a  man  of  genius, 
if  it  be  a  proof  of  genius  to  bid  a  new  institution  live. 
It  stands  on  the  south  of  the  city,  close  to  Christchurch 
meadow,  with  a  chapel,  or  rather  church,  and  tower, 
famed  as  examples  of  the  best  Gothic  style,  with  three 
quadrangles  of  different  epochs,  a  front  toward  the  mead- 
ow like  a  great  Tudor  mansion,  and  a  pleasant  garden 
with  a  grove  of  limes.  The  little  dark  quadrangle,  called 
—  nobody  knows  why — "  Mob  Quad,"  is  the  oldest  part 
of  the  pile,  and  the  cradle  of  college  life.  Merton  had 
before  him  the  difi'ercnt  elements  of  his  idea — the  mon- 


234  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

asteries,  with  their  strict  discipline ;  the  halls  or  hostels 
of  students,  with  their  secular  studies;  the  stipends  or 
exhibitions  which  the  wealthy  friends  of  learning  were 
in  the  habit  of  giving  to  needy  scholars,  but  which  ended 
with  the  life  of  the  giver.  He  adopted  the  architectural 
form  and  something  of  the  strict  rule  of  a  monastery,  but 
without  the  asceticism  or  the  vows,  devoting  his  house 
to  prayer  as  well  as  to  study,  and  attaching  to  it  a  chapel 
for  the  performance  of  religious  services,  but  making 
study  the  distinctive  object.  His  design  was  expressed 
in  his  code  of  statutes,  which  were  to  a  great  extent 
copied  by  subsequent  founders.  According  to  these,  the 
Scholars  (now  the  Fellows)  of  Merton  College  were  to 
be  of  good  character,  chaste,  peaceful,  humble,  indigent 
and  in  need  of  assistance,  apt  for  study,  and  desirous  of 
making  progress  in  it.  Their  qualifications  were  to  be 
tested  by  a  probationary  novitiate  of  one  year.  The 
Fellowship  was  to  be  forfeited  by  neglect  of  study,  or  by 
the  acquisition  of  such  a  benefice  in  the  Church  as  would 
render  the  Fellow  no  longer  in  need  of  assistance.  The 
Fellows  were  to  reside  constantly  in  college,  and  regu- 
larly to  attend  the  schools  of  the  University.  They  were 
first  to  study  "  the  liberal  arts  and  philosophy ;"  then  to 
pass  on  to  theology,  except  four  or  five,  who  might  study 
canon  law.  One  of  them  also  was  to  be  a  grammarian 
— for  the  benefit,  probably,  of  the  children  of  the  found- 
er's kin,  who  were  to  be  brought  up  in  the  hou^e.  The 
rule  of  study  was  simply  that  of  the  schools  of  the  Uni- 
versity. The  rule  of  life  prescribed  common  meals,  at 
which  the  Fellows  were  to  sit  in  silence,  after  the  monas- 
tic fashion,  and  listen  to  the  reader;  uniform  dress;  the 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  235 

use  of  the  Latin  tongue ;  strict  obedience ;  surveillance 
of  the  juniors  by  the  seniors;  and  periodical  inquiries, 
like  those  made  at  the  monastic  chapters,  into  the  char- 
acter and  conduct  of  all  the  members  of  the  society.  At- 
tendance at  the  canonical  hours  and  the  celebration  of 
masses  was  enjoined  on  all,  and,  for  this  purpose,  those 
of  the  society  were  required  to  be  in  priest's  orders. 
Masses  were  said  in  this,  as  in  all  media3val  foundations, 
for  the  founder's  soul.  The  college  was  to  be  governed 
by  a  Warden — "a  man  circumspect  in  spiritual  and  in 
temporal  affairs."  There  were  also  to  be  subordinate  of- 
ficers for  discipline,  and  for  managing  the  estates  and 
keeping  the  accounts ;  and  every  year,  after  harvest,  the 
Warden  was  to  make  his  progress  through  the  estates, 
and  to  report  to  the  society  on  his  return.  The  annual 
stipend  of  each  Fellow  was  to  be  fifty  shillings,  subject 
to  mulcts  for  absence  from  the  schools.  The  Warden 
was  to  have  fifty  merks  for  his  table  and  two  horses  for 
his  progress.  The  number  of  Fellows  was  to  increase 
with  the  estate,  and  this  increase  none,  under  pain  of  their 
founder's  high  displeasure,  were  to  oppose,  saving  in  very 
urgent  cases,  such  as  a  heavy  debt,  a  suit  with  a  power- 
ful adversary  (when,  in  those  days,  gold  would  have  been 
too  needful  to  obtain  justice),  losses  by  fire,  a  murrain 
among  the  flocks,  general  collections  for  poor  students, 
the  ransom  of  the  prince  or  a  prelate,  a  public  contribu- 
tion for  the  defense  of  the  Holy  Land.  Each  Fellow  at 
his  election  was  to  take  an  oath  to  obey  the  statutes;  and 
though  power  is  given  to  the  society  to  make  new  rules, 
no  power  is  given  to  alter  those  of  the  founder. 

The  last  regulation  proved  very  fatal  in  after  times  to 


236  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

the  welfare  of  Mertou's  foundation,  and  to  that  of  the 
other  foundations  which  were  modeled  after  the  pattern 
of  his,  because  it  kept  them  stationary  while  all  around 
was  moving — unchanging  while  all  around  was  changed. 
But  it  evinces  no  special  illiberality  or  tyrannical  tend- 
ency on  the  part  of  its  good  author.  The  men  of  his 
generation,  the  men  of  many  generations  after  his,  hav- 
ing no  extensive  knowledge  of  histor}'-,  would  have  no 
conception  of  the  great  onward  movement  of  humanity 
which  the  study  of  history,  ranging  over  long  periods  of 
time  and  including  great  revolutions,  has  revealed,  and 
which  would  convict  of  an  arrogance  bordering  on  in- 
sanity the  man  who  should,  in  these  times,  presume  to 
bind  his  own  ideas  on  any  community  as  an  inviolable 
and  immutable  law.  To  them  all  seemed  fixed  and  un- 
changing as  the  solid  earth,  of  the  revolutions  of  which 
they  were  as  little  conscious  as  they  were  of  the  progress 
of  the  political,  social,  and  intellectual  world.  They  paint- 
ed the  ajDOstlcs  in  the  dress  of  their  own  age,  and  thought 
that  men  would  wear  the  same  dress  till  the  end  of  time. 
They  had  no  idea  that  fifty  shillings  a  year  would  ever 
cease  to  be  a  comfortable  income  for  a  Scholar;  or  that 
a  Warden,  in  making  his  annual  progress  round  the  es- 
tates of  his  college,  would  ever  be  able  to  travel  more 
rapidly  and  conveniently  than  on  horseback.  And  in 
truth,  if  they  had  thought  that  the  poetry  and  enjoyment 
of  traveling  would  never  be  greater  than  it  was  in  those 
annual  rides  in  the  summer  time  through  woods  and 
over  hills,  by  castle,  and  abbey,  and  feudal  town,  not  from 
hotel  to  hotel,  but  from  one  country  grange  to  another, 
their  error  would  not  have  been  great.     Merton  allows 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  237 

Lis  "Warden  and  Fellows  to  make  new  rules  as  occasion 
might  require,  in  addition  to  those  he  gave  them,  and  in 
this  he  shows  himself  a  liberal  legislator  for  his  day.  lie 
was  scarcely  in  his  grave,  however,  before  his  inability, 
as  a  mortal,  to  mould  his  fellow-men  exactly  according 
to  his  will  became  apparent  in  deviations  from  his  rule ; 
and  we  have  the  Visitor  of  his  college.  Archbishop  Peck- 
ham,  fulminating  against  the  admission  of  interdicted 
studies,  the  neglect  of  the  rule  of  indigence,  and  other 
violations  and  perversions  of  the  founder's  law. 

The  necessity  of  respecting  individual  freedom  was  as 
little  understood  in  the  Middle  Ages -as  that  of  making 
provisions  for  reasonable  changes  in  institutions.  Men 
saw  no  evil  in  absolutely  surrendering  their  individuali- 
ty into  the  hands  of  a  founder,  whether  he  were  the 
founder  of  a  monastic  order  such  as  St.  Dominic  or  St. 
Francis,  or  the  founder  of  a  college  such  as  Merton.  As 
little  did  a  founder  see  any  evil  in  accepting  and  enforc- 
ing the  surrender.  And  in  those  simple  times  of  faith 
and  devotion  both  parties  erred  in  ignorance,  and  there- 
fore in  comparative  innocence.  But  the  error  of  both 
grew  more  conscious  and  less  innocent  when  Loyola  de- 
liberately set  himself  to  turn  his  followers  not  only  into 
intellectual  slaves,  but  into  "  living  corpses,"  and  when 
his  followers  renounced  the  freedom  to  which  they  had 
been  called  to  become  the  instruments  of  his  design. 

Merton  College  was  ecclesiastical,  as  all  literary  insti- 
tutions and  learned  men  were  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when, 
in  fact,  society  was  divided  into  the  soldier,  the  priest, 
the  burgher,  and  the  serf.  But  it  belonged  to  the  secu- 
lar, not  to  the  regular  clcrfry.     No  monk  was  to  be  ad- 


238  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFOKD. 

mitted  among  the  Fellows ;  and  in  case  the  Visitor 
should  exercise  Lis  office  by  deputy,  the  deputy  was  not 
to  be  a  monk — provisions  which  seem  to  denote  that  the 
founder's  leaning  was  to  the  party  of  nationality  and  in- 
dependence, not  to  the  Papal  party,  of  which  the  monk- 
ish orders  were  the  most  zealous  and  effective  supporters. 
And,  in  truth,  the  sons  of  Dominic  hardly  succeeded  in 
gaining  a  firm  ascendency  over  the  native  independence 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind.  England  was  never  in  the 
dominions  of  the  Inquisition. 

The  enactment  that  the  Fellows  of  Merton  should  all 
be  indigent  had,  no  doubt,  as  its  primary  object,  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  founder's  charitable  intentions  toward 
]ioor  students.  But  the  men  of  those  times  also  enter- 
tained an  ascetic  preference  for  poverty  as  the  higher 
spiritual  state — an  error,  as  we  all  know,  if  the  doctrine 
be  applied  to  the  wages  of  honest  labor,  and  not  merely 
to  those  who  live  in  idleness  and  luxury  by  the  sweat  of 
another's  brow,  yet  an  error  more  respectable  than  the 
worship  of  wealth,  and  in  this  respect  to  be  classed  with 
the  other  chimerical  but  not  ignoble  fancies  of  the  time. 
Poor  men  were  also  the  most  likely  to  render  perfect 
obedience,  for  the  sake  of  their  founder's  bread,  to  all 
the  requirements  of  his  rule.  Nor  was  there  any  lack 
of  indigence  in  mediaeval  Oxford.  IMany  of  the  youths 
who  had  found  their  way  from  the  bonds  and  darkness 
of  feudalism  to  the  light,  freedom,  and  hope  of  the  Uni- 
versity were,  as  was  before  said,  actual  mendicants.  They 
were  in  the  habit  of  receiving  regular  licenses  from  the 
Vice-Chancellor  to  beg. 

Our  picture  of  a  media:; val  college  would  hardly  be 


THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFOED.  239 

complete  without  the  servants — the  manciple,  cook,  but- 
ler, barber,  and  porter,  and  the  groom  who  kept  the  horses 
for  the  annual  progress.  There  were  in  some  colleges 
regular  members  of  the  foundation,  with  "commons"  or 
allowances  like  the  Head  and  Fellows.  Chaucer  has  de- 
scribed the  manciple  of  a  temple  (that  is,  a  college  of  law- 
yers in  London),  and  the  description  will  serve  equally 
well  for  the  manciple  of  a  college  at  Oxford.  Domestic 
service  then  was  not  a  commercial  contract,  but  a  sort  of 
personal  allegiance,  like  the  fealty  of  a  vassal  to  his  lord, 
and  probably,  as  a  general  rule,  it  lasted  through  life.  It 
now  seems,  in  America  at  least,  to  have  almost  reached 
its  last  stage  of  existence. 

I  have  cited  Chaucer.  He  has  given,  in  the  Prologue 
to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  a  picture  (not  the  least  admira- 
ble in  that  gallery  of  social  portraits)  of  an  Oxford  stu- 
dent of  this,  or  of  a  rather  later  period,  which  will  no 
doubt  represent  to  us  sufficiently  well  the  inmates  of  the 
House  of  Merton : 

"A  clerk  there  was  of  Oxenforde  also, 
That  unto  logikc  hadde  long  ygo. 
As  lene  was  his  hors  as  is  a  rake, 
And  he  was  not  right  fat  I  undertake  ; 
But  lokcd  holwe  and  thereto  soberly. 
Ful  thredbarc  was  his  ovcrcst  courtepy, 
For  he  hadde  geten  him  yet  no  benefice, 
Ne  was  nought  worldly  to  have  an  office. 
For  him  was  lever  hau  at  his  beddes  lied 
A  twenty  bokes,  clothed  in  black  or  red, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophic, 
Than  robes  rich,  or  fidel,  or  sautrie. 
But  all  be  that  he  was  a  philosophrc, 
Yet  hadde  he  but  litcl  gold  in  cofrc  ; 


2-10  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

But  all  that  he  might  of  his  frciulcs  hente, 
On  bokes  and  on  Icrning  he  it  spcnto ; 
Ami  besiiy  gan  for  the  soulcs  praie 
(_)f  him  that  yave  him  whorcwitli  to  scolaie. 
Of  studio  took  he  moste  cure  and  hcde  ; 
Not  a  word  spake  he  more  than  was  nede ; 
And  that  was  said  in  forme  and  reverence, 
And  short  and  quike  and  ful  of  high  sentence. 
Souning  in  moral  vertue  was  his  speche, 
And  gladly  woldc  he  lerne  and  gladly  tcche. " 

If  this  description  is  as  true  as  it  is  genial  and  vivid, 
"  Oxcnforde"  had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  her  *'  clerks." 
Though  their  philosophy  produced  no  gold,  they  must 
have  been  very  far  from  an  ignoble  or  worthless  element 
in  the  nation. 

Such  was  the  most  ancient  of  these  communities,  the 
thread  of  whose  corporate  lives  has  run  through  so  many 
centuries,  and  survived  so  many  revolutions ;  in  whose 
domestic  archives  are  recorded  the  daily  habits  and  ex- 
penses of  so  many  successive  generations.  Would  that 
they  had  left  a  record  of  their  thoughts  and  feelings  too, 
or  even  of  the  events  that  passed  before  their  eyes ! 

If  you  come  to  Merton,  or  to  any  of  the  colleges  of 
which  it  was  the  type,  in  the  present  day,  you  will  see 
the  old  buildings  and  feel  their  influence,  but  you  will 
trace  only  the  faint  and  fading  remains  of  the  original  in- 
stitution. You  will  find  the  Fellows  still  dining  togeth- 
er, and  still  unmarried ;  but  you  will  have  no  reader  at 
meals,  nor  will  the  meal  be  silent,  nor  will  the  speech  be 
in  the  Latin  tongue.  What  is  of  more  importance,  the 
scholars  of  Merton,  who  have  assumed  the  common  name 
o"  Fellows,  instead  of  being  students  in  the  schools  of  the 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  OXFORD.  241 

University,  have  themselves  become  teachers,  engaged  in 
the  tuition  of  the  students  who  fill  the  extended  build- 
ings of  the  college.  This  is  a  change  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  colleges  generally  since  the  date  of  their 
foundation,  though  in  some,  especially  those  of  later  date, 
the  rudiments  of  the  system  of  college  tuition  are  discern- 
ible in  the  original  statutes.  Junior  members  have  gen- 
erally been  added  to  the  foundation,  if  they  were  not 
originally  a  part  of  it,  who  receive  stipends  from  the  col- 
lege, and  wear  a  special  gown  to  distinguish  them  as 
foundationers,  but  are  not  members  of  the  governing- 
body.  To  these  the  name  of  Scholars  is  now  appropria- 
ted, though  in  the  earlier  colleges  it  was  given  to  those 
who  are  now  the  Fellows.  Such  of  the  Fellows  as  are 
still  students  study  in  London,  in  the  precincts  of  the  law 
or  in  the  great  schools  of  medicine. 

Baliol  is  of  earlier  date  than  Merton  as  a  foundation, 
but  it  was  not  till  a  later  period,  and  probably  in  imita- 
tion of  Merton,  that  it  took  the  shape  of  a  regular  college. 
John  Baliol — the  father  of  that  Baliol  who  was  King  of 
Scotland  for  a  day — besought  his  wife  Dervorguilla,  on 
his  death-bed,  to  continue  the  charitable  assistance  which 
he  had  given  to  poor  Oxford  scholars  during  his  life. 
The  "noble  and  virtuous  lady,"  in  fullillment  of  this  re- 
quest, bought  a  house  in  Oxford,  and  placed  her  husband's 
scholars  in  it.  She  gave  them  a  short  and  sensible  code 
of  statutes,  enjoining  them  to  attend  divine  service  on 
festivals,  and  on  other  days  to  frequent  the  schools  of  the 
University ;  to  pray  for  her  husband's  soul ;  and  to  ob- 
serve some  simple  rules  of  life.  A  young  scholar,  or  serv- 
itor, was  to  be  fed  with  the  broken  meat  from  their  table, 

L 


242  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD. 

As  the  foundation  of  a  Baliol,  the  college  is  a  monument 
of  the  close  connection  which  existed,  between  the  En- 
glish and  Scotch  nobility,  and  of  the  tendency  which  the 
two  nations  showed  to  imite  with  each  other,  till  the  wars 
of  Edward  I,  put  deadly  enmity  between  them,  and  de- 
layed their  union  for  four  centuries.  In  its  outward  ap- 
pearance, Baliol,  in  spite  of  its  new  buildings,  the  offspring 
of  the  revived  Gothic  taste,  is  perhaps  the  least  attractive 
of  all  the  colleges ;  but  for  many  years  past  it  has  been 
the  most  distinguished  in  intellect,  and  the  foremost  in 
the  race  for  University  honors.  Let  no  one,  looking  on 
its  ugliness,  conclude  that  beauty  is  unfavorable  to  learn- 
ing. The  talisman  of  its  intellectual  greatness  has  not 
been  ugliness,  but  freedom.  Dcrvorguilla  was  led  by  her 
good  sense,  or  by  some  happy  accident  (let  us  hope  by 
her  good  sense),  to  leave  the  members  of  her  college  great 
liberty  in  elections  to  Fellowships — not  fettering  them,  as 
most  of  the  founders  did,  with  preferences  to  the  natives 
of  favored  counties  or  of  founder's  kin.  They  were  thus 
enabled  to  select  and  reward  merit,  to  secure  the  most 
distinguished  names  for  their  society,  and  the  best  teach- 
ers for  their  students,  and  to  place  a  poor  and  originally 
very  humble  college  at  the  head  of  the  whole  University. 
Exeter  College  and  Oriel  College  arc  memorials  of  the 
unhappy  times  of  Edward  II.  The  founder  of  Oriel  Col- 
lege, Adam  de  Brome,  a  chaplain  of  the  unfortunate  king, 
felt  that  he  had  fallen  on  evil  days ;  for  in  the  opening 
of  his  statutes  he  concludes  a  long  jcremiade  on  the  cor- 
ruptions and  miseries  of  the  age  with  the  dismal  declara- 
I  ion  that  all  visible  things  are  visibly  tending  to  annihila- 
tion ((|uro  visibilcm  habent  essentiam  tcndunt  visibiliter 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  243 

ad  lion  esse).  Evil  days  thcj  were  indeed — the  days  of 
a  weak  king,  when  weakness  in  a  king  was  criminal ;  of 
civil  discord,  of  disastrous  and  humiliating  war,  of  famine 
and  misery  that  loosened  the  very  bonds  of  society.  And 
it  was  something  that,  with  all  this  around  them,  men 
could  still  live  in  the  world  of  intellect,  and,  with  a  hope- 
ful though  a  sorrowful  hand,  cast  bread  on  the  waters,  to 
be  found  in  a  happier  hour.  Walter  de  Stapyldon,  Bish- 
op of  Exeter,  the  founder  of  Exeter  College,  perished  in 
an  insurrection  of  the  populace  of  London  on  the  eve  of 
his  master's  fall.  The  elections  to  the  Fellowships  at  Ori- 
el College,  like  those  at  Baliol,  were  left  comparatively 
open,  and  with  the  same  result.  Among  the  illustrious 
men  numbered  among  the  Fellows  in  recent  times  were 
Arnold,  "Whately,  and — perhaps  more  famous  than  either 
— J.  H.  Newman,  whose  genius  organized  and  led  the 
great  Eomanizing  reaction  in  the  Church  of  England, 
which  ought  to  bear  his  name  rather  than  that  of  his 
friend  and  coadjutor,  Dr.  Pusey. 

The  great  Palladian  building  opposite  to  University 
College,  in  Iligh  Street,  was  substituted  by  the  classiciz- 
ing taste  of  the  last  century  foj"  the  ancient  buildings  of 
Queen's  College.  This  college  was  founded  by  Eggles- 
field,  chaplain  to  Philippa,  the  Queen  of  Edward  III,  and 
was  commended  to  the  patronage  of  all  queens  consort 
by  the  founder,  who  could  himself  only  give  "a  widow's 
mite"  toward  the  accomplishment  of  his  design.  The  per- 
mission to  speak  French  as  well  as  Latin,  and  the  injunc- 
tion to  cultivate  courtly  manners,  betoken  Egglcsfield's 
acquaintance,  as  a  royal  chaplain,  with  the  court — one  of 
the  gayest  and  most  gallant  courts,  the  most  full  of  spirit 


244  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

and  life,  perhaps,  that  ever  met  in  halls  devoted  to  the 
"  dull  pomp  of  kings."  Egglesfield  was  also  full  of  mys- 
tical fancies  and  extravagant  symbolism.  The  members 
of  his  college  were  to  be  thirteen,  answering  to  the  num- 
ber of  Christ  and  the  apostles ;  they  were  to  sit  at  dinner 
as  he  imagined  Christ  and  the  apostles  had  sat  at  the  Last 
Supper ;  they  were  to  wash  the  feet  of  thirteen  poor  men 
once  every  year;  they  were  to  maintain  seventy  poor 
boys,  in  honor  of  the  seventy  disciples ;  they  were  to 
have  in  their  chapel  a  candelabrum  with  seven  branches, 
to  typify  the  seven  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  and  worst  the  sev- 
en devils.  A  symbolical  needle  is  still  presented  to  each 
of  the  Fellows  at  the  annual  college  festival  with  the 
words,  "  Take  this  and  be  thrifty,"  to  recall  an  absurd  ety- 
mology (Aiguille)  of  the  founder's  name ;  and  from  some 
fancy,  perhaps  equally  childish,  the  college  is  still  sum- 
moned to  dinner  by  the  sound  of  a  horn.  Such  puerili- 
ties mingled  with  the  highest  designs  of  these  men ;  so 
true  it  is  that  in  their  grandest  works  they  were  "like 
noble  boys  at  play."  It  is  a  cherished  but  a  baseless  tra- 
dition that,  within  the  walls  of  the  college  founded  by  his 
mother's  chaplain,  was  educated  the  heroic  boy  whose 
first  feat  of  arms  was  performed  at  Crecy ;  who  led  En- 
gland at  Poicticrs ;  and  whose  name,  if  we  could  honest- 
ly claim  it,  would  be  dear  to  us,  less  because  he  was  the 
first  soldier,  than  because,  with  all  his  faults,  and  all  the 
stains  on  his  bright  career,  he  was  the  first  gentleman  of 
his  age.  Queen's  College  has  a  somewhat  better  preten- 
sion to  the  honor  of  having  educated  the  victor  of  Agin- 
court,  who  is  said  to  have  resided  liorc  under  the  tuition 
of  his  uncle,  Cardinal  r>eauforL. 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD.  245 

And  now  a  crisis  arrived  in  the  history  of  the  Univer- 
sity. Whether  it  was  from  the  troubles  consequent  on 
the  preaching  of  Wickliffe,  or  from  any  other  cause,  the 
numbers  of  the  students  fell  off,  and  the  schools  were  be- 
coming deserted,  when  a  friend  appeared  to  restore  the 
prosperity  of  Oxford  by  a  new  and  more  magnificent 
foundation. 

New  College  is  four  centuries  and  a  half  old.  Once  it 
was  not  only  new,  but  a  novelty,  and  the  wonder  of  its 
age.  This  college,  and  the  great  school  at  Winchester  at- 
tached to  it,  were  the  splendid  and  memorable  work  of 
William  of  Wykeham,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who,  com- 
bining, after  the  manner  of  those  days,  the  statesman  with 
the  churchman,  was  the  chancellor,  the  favorite  minister, 
and  the  chief  diplomatist  of  Edward  III.  Loaded  with 
preferment,  even  to  an  excess  of  pluralism,  by  the  favor 
of  his  sovereign,  he  used  his  accumulated  wealth  with  the 
munificence  which  Bacon,  childless  himself,  complacently 
notes  as  characteristic  of  childless  men.  The  founder  of 
New  College  had  originally  risen  in  life  and  attracted  the 
king's  notice  by  his  skill  as  an  architect — a  calling  not 
incompatible  with  the  clerical  character  in  an  age  when 
the  clergy  embraced  all  who  wrought  not  with  the  hand, 
but  with  the  brain.  He  had  built  Windsor  Castle ;  and 
in  founding  his  own  colleges,  no  doubt  he  gratified  the 
tastes  of  the  architect  as  well  as  those  of  the  friend  of  re- 
ligion and  learning.  The  chapel,  the  hall,  the  cloisters, 
the  tower,  the  great  quadrangle,  still  bespeak  his  genius; 
though  the  great  quadrangle  has  been  somewhat  marred 
by  the  tastelessness  of  a  later  age,  which  has  also  added 
another  quadrangle,  in  wretched  imitation,  it  is  believed. 


246  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

of  some  part  of  Versailles.  Beyond,  you  pass  into  a  gar- 
den remarkable  for  its  fine  masses  of  varied  foliage  and 
its  vignette  view  of  Llagdalen  Tower.  Skirting  the  col- 
lege and  garden  is  the  ancient  city  wall,  liere  in  its  most 
perfect  state,  and  most  completely  recalling  the  image  of 
the  old  feudal  town.  The  style  of  the  college  is  the  ear- 
liest perpendicular,  marking  the  entrance  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture into  the  last  of  its  successive  phases  of  beauty,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  entrance  of  Mediccval  Catholicism 
and  the  feudal  system  upon  the  period  of  their  decline. 
The  special  studies  prescribed  by  the  founder,  which  are 
of  a  classical  character,  also  mark  the  dawn  of  the  Kenais- 
sance  in  England  some  time  after  its  light  had  begun  to 
fill  the  sky  in  the  land  of  Petrarch.  This  was  the  age  of 
Gower  and  Chaucer,  the  natal  hour  of  modern  English 
literature.  With  the  revival  of  learning  was  destined  to 
come  a  great  revolution  in  the  religious  sphere.  But  to 
this  part  of  the  movement  Wykeham  was  no  friend.  In 
ecclesiastical  matters  he  was  a  Conservative.  lie  had 
come  into  collision  with  the  early  Eeformation,  and  with 
the  precursor  of  Luther  in  the  person  of  Wickliffc.  He 
dedicated  his  two  colleges  to  the  Virgin,  of  whom  he  was 
a  special  devotee,  and  whose  image  stands  consiDicuous  in 
more  than  one  part  of  the  quadrangle.  lie  went  beyond 
the  previous  founders  in  making  peculiar  and  sumptuous 
provision  for  the  performance  of  the  Catholic  ritual,  with 
its  stoled  processions  and  tapered  rites,  and  in  enjoining 
religious  observances  and  devotions  on  the  members  of 
his  college.  New  Collegers  still  distinguished  not  only 
by  the  size  and  beauty  of  its  chapel,  but  by  its  excellent 
choral  service.     Like  many  a  Catholic  patron  and  pro- 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  247 

moter  of  learning  in  the  epoch  preceding  the  Reformation 
— like  Wolsey,  like  Sir  Thomas  More,  like  Leo  X. — 
Wykeham,  in  fostering  classical  literature  and  intellectual 
progress,  unconsciously  forwarded  the  destruction  of  all 
that  was  most  dear  to  him.  He  warmed  into  life  the  ser- 
pent (so  he  would  have  thought  it)  that  was  to  sting  his 
own  Church  to  death. 

New  College  had  altogether  more  the  character  of  an 
Abbey  than  the  previous  foundations.  Its  warden  lived 
with  more  of  the  state  of  an  abbot  than  the  warden  of 
Merton  and  the  other  colleges  of  that  type.  Its  statutes 
prescribed  a  more  monastic  rule  of  life  than  previous 
codes.  They  regulated  more  narrowly,  not  to  say  more 
tyrannically,  the  details  of  personal  conduct,  and  provided 
for  more  of  mutual  surveillance  and  denunciation.  They 
forbid  any  student  to  go  beyond  the  gates  any  where,  ex- 
cept to  the  schools  of  the  University,  without  a  compan- 
ion to  keep  watch  over  him.  They  betray  an  increased 
desire  to  force  individual  character  into  a  prescribed 
mould.  "We  may  gather  from  their  enactments  that  in 
those  days,  as  in  these,  the  student  was  sometimes  led 
astray  from  the  path  of  learning  and  asceticism  by  the 
sports  and  allurements  of  an  evil  world ;  for  they  strictly 
enjoin  abstinence  from  gambling,  hunting,  and  hawking. 
Each  member  of  the  college  is  sworn  to  observe  them  by 
oaths  which,  by  their  almost  portentous  rigor  and  prolix- 
ity, seem  to  betray  the  advent  of  an  age  when,  the  relig- 
ious faith  of  the  world  having  given  wa}'',  morality  had 
given  way  with  it,  and  man  could  no  longer  put  trust  in 
man. 

The  University,  as  has  been  said,  appears  to  have  been 


248  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

in  a  languishing  state  when  New  College  was  founded. 
Wykebam  obtained  for  bis  students  tbc  peculiar  privilege 
of  being  examined  for  tbeir  degrees  by  tbe  College  in- 
stead of  tbe  University,  wbercby  be  meant  to  raise  tbem 
to  a  bigber  pitcb  of  industry,  tbougb  tbe  privilege  proved, 
in  after  times,  a  cbarter  of  idleness.  He  also  provided 
for  instruction  by  college  tutors  witbin  tbe  walls. 

In  tbese  respects  bis  college  w\as  peculiar.  It  was  still 
more  peculiar  in  its  connection  witb  tbe  famous  scbool 
wbicb,  standing  beneatb  tbe  sbadow  of  Wincbester  Ca- 
thedral, casts  over  boybood  tbe  spell  of  reverend  antiqui- 
ty. Wincbester  was  tbe  first  of  our  English  public 
schools,  and  tbe  archetype  of  our  public  scbool  system : 
a  system  somewhat  severe,  taking  tbe  boy,  almost  the 
child,  from  his  home,  and  throwing  him  before  bis  hour 
into  a  world  almost  as  bard  as  that  with  wbicb  tbe  man 
will  have  to  struggle ;  but  the  parent,  no  doubt,  of  some 
Eoman  virtues,  and  tbe  mistress,  in  part,  of  our  imperial 
greatness. 

It  is  probable  that  tbe  troubles  which  interfered  with 
tbe  prosperity  of  the  University  had  been  connected  with 
tbe  rise  of  Wickliffism.  The  arch-hcrctic  was  himself 
tbe  foremost  of  Oxford  teachers  and  tbe  leader  of  tbe  ar- 
dent intellect  of  Oxford,  as  well  as  of  its  high  spiritual 
aspirations.  It  was  with  great  difiiculty,  and  after  re- 
peated struggles,  that  tbe  Church  authorities  succeeded  in 
purifying,  if  ever  they  did  succeed  in  purifying,  the  Uni- 
versity of  this  plague ;  and  our  first  religious  test  was  di- 
rected against  this,  tbe  earliest  form  of  tbe  Protestant  re- 
ligion. Among  those  who  bad  caught  tbc  infection  was 
Fleming,  the  founder  of  Lincoln  College,  a  venerable  and 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD.  249 

somewhat  sombre  pile  close  to  Exeter.  Afterward  he 
grew  orthodox,  was  made  a  bishop,  and,  becoming  a  dead- 
ly enemy  of  the  party  which  he  had  deserted,  founded  a 
theological  college  specially  to  combat  "that  new  and 
pestilent  sect,  which  assailed  all  the  sacraments  and  all 
the  possessions  of  the  Church."  These  words  are  not  a 
bad  summary  of  WickliflEism,  a  movement  directed  at  once 
against  the  worldly  wealth  of  the  Establishment  and  the 
sacramental  and  ceremonial  system,  which  failed  any  lon- 
ger to  satisfy  the  religious  heart.  Whether  Bishop  Flem- 
ing's college  contributed  much  toward  the  suppression 
of  Protestant  heresy  in  those  days  we  do  not  know.  In 
the  last  century  it  produced  a  group  of  students  of  a  se- 
rious turn,  diligent  in  religious  studies  and  exercises,  and 
on  that  account  the  laughing-stock  of  their  fellow-students 
in  a  skeptical  and  scofiiDg  age,  at  the  head  of  whom  was 
the  modern  counterpart  of  Wickliflfe — John  "Wesley. 

Facing  one  way  on  Iligh  Street,  the  other  on  the  Rad- 
clyffe  Square,  witli  a  fine  Gothic  front,  two  quadrangles, 
and  a  pair  of  high  towers  in  debased  Gothic  style,  but 
very  picturesque,  stands  All  Souls'  College.  Over  the 
gateway  in  lligh  Street  are  sculptured  the  souls  for  whose 
relief  from  Purgatory  the  college  was  partly  founded. 
Chichele,  its  founder,  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbuiy  and 
Chancellor  of  Ilenry  V.  Parliament  already  at  that  time 
was  moving  the  Crown  to  secularize  church  property  and 
apply  it  to  the  defense  of  the  realm.  Shakspeare  has  im- 
mortalized the  statement  of  the  chroniclers  that  Arch- 
bishop Chichele  urged  his  master  to  claim  the  crown  of 
France  in  order  to  divert  him  from  attending  to  these 
proposals.    Some  confirmation  of  this  belief  may  perhaps 

L2 


350  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

be  found  in  the  statutes  of  Chichcle's  college,  whicli  com- 
mand its  members,  as  a  duty  more  incumbent  on  them 
even  than  that  of  learning,  to  pray  for  the  souls  of  King 
Ilenry  V.  and  such  of  his  companions  in  arms  as  "  drank 
the  bitter  cup  ofdeath"  in  the  fields  of  that  glorious  but 
unjust,  and  therefore,  in  its  ultimate  issue,  disastrous  war. 
In  after  times,  through  some  unexplained  train  of  acci- 
dents, the  college  became  appropriated  to  men  of  high 
family,  and  the  claims  of  aristocratic  connection  are  still 
struggling  with  those  of  merit  for  the  possession  of  the 
institution. 

Chichele  had  been  educated  at  New  College,  the  stat- 
utes of  which  he  to  a  great  extent  copied.  Another  son 
of  the  same  house,  who  also  copied  its  statutes,  was  Wil- 
liam of  Waynflete,  Chancellor  of  Ilenry  VI.,  and  founder 
of  MaGfdalcn  Collcore,  which  stands  beside  the  River  Cher- 
well,  amidst  its  smooth  expanses  of  lawn  and  under  its 
immemorial  trees,  the  loveliest  of  all  the  homes  of  learn- 
ing, the  richest  in  all  that  is  dear  to  a  student's  heart. 
Let  one  whose  youth  was  passed  in  that  fair  house  pay 
his  tribute  of  gratitude  and  reverence  to  his  founder's 
shade.  In  this  work,  we  may  believe,  the  spirit  of  a 
statesman-prelate,  tossed  on  the  waves  of  civil  war,  found 
relief  from  the  troubles  of  an  unquiet  time.  Under  that 
gateway,  when  the  tracery,  now  touched  by  age,  was  fresh, 
and  the  stone,  now  gray,  was  white,  passed  Ilichard  III., 
with  his  crime  in  his  heart.  The  shadow  of  his  dark 
presence  is  in  the  rooms  of  state  over  the  gateway,  which 
have  just  been  restored  by  the  college  to  their  pristine 
magniQcence.  But  pass  on,  under  the  cloisters,  through 
the  quadrangle,  with  its  tranquil  beauty,  its  level  floor  of 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  251 

green,  and  its  quaint  symbolic  figures,  and  you  will  come 
to  the  walk  consecrated  by  the  gentle  genius  of  Addi- 
son. 

The  quadrangle,  chapel,  and  hall  are  the  work  of  the 
founder.  But  the  tower,  which  lends  grace  to  every  view 
of  Oxford,  is  believed  to  be  a  monument  of  the  taste  and 
of  the  soaring  genius  of  Wolsey,  who  was  a  Fellow  of  the 
college,  and  the  occurrence  of  whose  name  is  ominous  of 
coming  change. 

The  next  foundation,  following  hard  upon  Magdalen, 
is  Brasenose,  a  mass  of  buildings  close  under  the  Ead- 
clyffe  Library — dark,  as  much  from  the  discoloring  of  the 
stone  as  from  years.  As  the  night  of  the  Middle  Ages 
passed  away,  and  the  sun  of  the  Eenaissance  climbed  the 
sky,  more  colleges  and  fewer  monasteries  were  founded. 
Yet  the  bishop  and  the  pious  knight  who  jointly  found- 
ed Brasenose  had  no  misgiving  as  to  the  perpetual  con- 
tinuance of  Eoman  Catholic  devotions.  They  did  not 
imagine  that  a  day  would  come,  and  that  soon,  when  it 
would  be  no  longer  a  duty  to  attend  daily  mass,  to  repeat 
the  Miserere  and  the  Sancla  Marie  Mater,  to  say  the  Pater- 
noster five  times  a  day  in  honor  of  the  five  wounds  of 
Christ,  and  the  Angelical  Salutation  as  many  times  in 
honor  of  the  five  joys  of  the  Virgin.  Yet  the  patent  of 
their  foundation  is  dated  in  the  third  year  of  Ilenry 
VIII. 

Pent  between  Morton  and  Christchurch — a  confine- 
ment from  which  its  growing  greatness  may  one  day 
tempt  it  to  escape  by  migration — is  Corpus  Christi  Col- 
lege. The  quadrangle,  with  its  quaint  sun-dial,  stands  as 
it  was  left  by  the  founder.  Fox,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  a 


252  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

statesman  and  diplomatist,  trusted  in  the  crafty  councils 
of  Henry  VII.  "We  are  now  in  full  Renaissance,  and  on 
tlie  brink  of  tlie  Eeformation.  The  name  of  the  college, 
denoting  a  strong  belief  in  transubstantiation,  and  tbe  de- 
votions prescribed  in  the  statutes,  sboTv  that  the  founder 
•was  (as  the  holder  of  the  rich  see  of  "Winchester  might 
be  expected  to  be)  an  adherent  of  the  established  faith. 
He  had  first  intended  to  found  a  monastery.  But  his 
far-sighted  friend,  Bishoj)  Oldham,  said,  "What !  my  lord, 
shall  we  build  houses  and  provide  livelihoods  for  a  com- 
pany of  bussing  [praying]  monks,  whose  end  and  fall  we 
may  ourselves  live  to  see  ?  No,  no ;  it  is  more  meet  that 
we  should  provide  for  the  increase  of  learning,  and  for 
such  as  by  their  learning  may  do  good  to  the  Church  and 
commonwealth."  To  the  Eenaissance,  however,  Fox's 
college  emphatically  belongs.  For  the  first  time  the 
classical  authors  are  distinctly  prescribed  as  studies,  and 
a  long  and  liberal  list  of  them  is  given  in  the  statutes. 
Latin  composition,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  is  enjoined ; 
and  even  on  holidays  and  in  vacation  the  students  arc 
required  to  practice  themselves  in  writing  verses  and 
letters,  in  the  rules  of  eloquence,  the  poets,  orators,  and 
historians.  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  was  to  be  spoken  by 
the  students  in  the  college  hall — an  enactment  which  be- 
speaks the  intoxicating  enthusiasm  excited  by  the  revi- 
val of  learning.  The  foundation  embraced  two  classic- 
al lecturers  for  the  whole  University,  and  Greece  and 
Southern  Italy  are  especially  mentioned  as  countries  from 
which  the  lecturers  are  to  be  taken.  The  language  of 
the  statutes  themselves  affects  classical  elegance,  and  the 
framer  apologizes  for  not  being  perfectly  Ciceronian. 


THE   UNIVEKSITY   OF   OXFORD.  253 

Erasmus,  who  had  visited  the  college,  said  that  it  would 
be  to  Britain  what  the  Mausoleum  was  to  Caria,  what  the 
Colossus  was  to  Ehodes.  This  it  has  hardly  been,  but  it 
has  jDroduced  eminent  men ;  and  here  Arnold  practiced 
in  youthful,  almost  boyish,  debate  the  weapons  which  ho 
was  afterward  to  wield  for  truth  and  justice  on  an  ampler 
field. 

Pulpit  eloquence  as  well  as  classical  learning  was.  now 
in  vogue,  and  the  Fellows  of  Corpus  Christi  College  are 
required,  when  of  a  certain  standing,  to  preach  in  popu- 
lous cities,  and  at  last,  as  the  crowning  test  of  their  pow- 
ers, at  St.  Paul's  Cross.  To  preach  at  St.  Paul's  Cross 
went,  among  other  Fellows  of  the  College,  Eichard  Hook- 
er, and  those  who  have  read  his  life  can  tell  with  how  lu- 
dicrous and  calamitous  a  result. 

The  hour  of  Medieeval  Catholicism  was  now  come ; 
but  its  grandest  foundation  at  Osford  was  its  last.  The 
stately  facade,  the  ample  quadrangle,  the  noble  hall  of 
Christchurch  are  monuments,  as  every  reader  of  Shak- 
speare  knows,  of  the  magnificence  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  a 
true  Prince  of  the  Church,  with  a  princely,  if  not  with  a 
pure  heart.  Here  we  stand  on  the  point  of  transition  be- 
tween Catholic  and  Protestant  England.  Wolsey  was  in 
every  sense  an  English  Leo  X. ;  an  indifferentist,  proba- 
bly, in  rehgiou,  as  well  as  loose  in  morals,  till  misfortune 
and  the  approach  of  death  made  him  again  turn  to  God ; 
an  enthusiast  only  in  learning ;  one  of  a  group  of  men 
who,  by  fostering  the  new  studies,  promoted — without 
being  aware  of  it — the  progress  of  the  new  faith,  and 
built  with  their  own  hands  the  funeral  pile  of  their  own 
Church.     He  suppressed  a  number  of  small  monasteries 


254  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

to  found  Christchurcli ;  and  no  doubt  lie  felt  for  the 
monks — with  their  trumpery,  their  gross  legends,  and 
their  fabricated  relics — the  same  contempt  which  was 
felt  for  them  by  Erasmus  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  all 
other  educated  and  enlightened  men  of  the  time.  But 
he  started  back,  and  was  troubled  in  mind  when  he  found 
that  the  eminent  teachers  whom  he  had  sought  out  with 
great  pains  for  his  new  college  were  teachers  of  other 
novelties  besides  the  classics.  \ 

Grand  as  it  is,  Christchurch  is  not  what  "Wolscy  in- 
tended it  to  be.  Had  his  design  been  fulfilled,  it  would 
have  been  "Oxford"  indeed,  and  the  University  would 
have  been  almost  swallowed  up  in  "  Cardinal  College," 
the  name  which,  with  a  spirit  of  self-glorification  some- 
what characteristic  of  him,  he  intended  to  give  his  found- 
ation. But  in  the  midst  of  his  work  he  fell ;  and  the 
king,  whom  he  had  served  too  well,  took  his  wealth  and 
usurped  his  place  as  the  legal  founder  of  Christchurch, 
though  he  has  not  been  able  to  usurp  his  place  in  history 
or  in  the  real  allegiance  of  Christchurch  men.  The  col- 
lege, however,  though  shorn  of  part  of  its  splendor,  was 
still  splendid.  In  after  times  it  became — in  a  social  and 
political  sense  at  least — the  first  in  England,  and  the  por- 
traits which  line  its  hall  are  a  gallery  of  English  worthies 
in  church  and  state. 

And  now  over  Oxford,  as  well  as  over  the  rest  of  En- 
gland— and  more  fiercely,  perhaps,  than  over  any  other 
city  of  England — swept  the  great  storm  of  the  Eeforma- 
tion.  The  current  of  religious  thought  which,  left  to  it- 
self, would  have  flowed  in  a  peaceful  and  beneficent 
stream,  restrained  by  the  barriers  of  a  political  church. 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD,  255 

at  last  burst  upon  society  with  the  accumulated  fury  of 
a  pent-up  torrent.  The  monasteries,  in  Oxford  as  else- 
where, fell  by  a  cruel  though  a  righteous  doom ;  their 
beauty  was  laid  desolate.  For  a  moment  the  colleges 
were  in  danger.  Our  charters  were  taken  from  ns,  and 
the  hungry  courtiers,  fleshed  with  the  plunder  of  the 
monasteries,  marked  us  for  their  prey.  But  Henry  VIII. 
was  learned,  and  a  friend  of  learning :  after  a  short  hesi- 
tation he  drove  off  the  pack  of  ravening  hounds,  and  the 
charters  were  given  back  into  our  trembling  hands.  But 
every  thing  monastic  was  rigorously  suppressed.  The 
great  bell  of  Christchurch,  which  Milton  heard  from  his 
neighboring  house  at  Forest  Hill,  "swinging  slow  with 
sullen  roar,"  was  saved  from  the  wreck  of  Ouseney  Ab- 
bey, the  chief  monastery  of  the  city. 

The  revolution  was  almost  as  great  in  the  intellectu.nl 
as  in  the  ecclesiastical  si^here.  The  books  of  the  great 
school  philosophers  and  divines — of  Aquinas,  Duns  Sco- 
tus,  the  Master  of  the  Sentences — were  torn  up  and  scat- 
tered about  the  college  quadrangles.  They  had  been  the 
"angelic,"  the  "subtle,"  the  "irrefragable"  doctors  of 
their  day. 

To  and  fro  swept  the  tide  of  controversy  and  persecu- 
tion from  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation  under  Hen- 
ry VIII.  to  the  final  settlement  under  Elizabeth.  Now 
Catholics  were  expelled  from  their  colleges  by  Edward 
VI.,  now  Protestants  by  Mary,  and  again  Catholics  by 
Elizabeth.  In  Broad  Street,  opposite  Baliol  College,  a 
site  once  occupied  by  the  city  ditch,  is  a  spot  marked  by 
a  flat  cross  of  stone.  There  Cranmer,  Latimer,  and  Rid- 
ley died.     In  the  city  wall,  close  by,  was  their  prison- 


266  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  OXFORD. 

house.  While  the  Protestant  divines,  Buccr  and  Fagius, 
reigned  in  Oxford,  the  wife  of  Fagius  was  buried  near 
the  shrine  of  St.  Frideswide,  in  Christchurch  Cathedral. 
The  Catholics,  in  their  hour  of  triumph,  flung  out  the  ac- 
cursed wife  of  the  heretic  from  the  holy  ground.  The 
Protestants,  in  their  turn  victorious,  mingled  her  bones 
with  those  of  the  saint,  and  the  dust  of  the  two  remains 
forever  blended  together  by  the  irony  of  fate. 

Two  colleges.  Trinity  and  St.  John's,  were  founded  dur- 
ing the  brief  Catholic  reaction  under  Philip  and  Mary. 
As  celibate  institutions,  colleges,  though  less  distinctively 
Catholic  than  monasteries,  were  still  more  congenial  to 
Catholicism  than  to  Protestantism,  and  it  was  natural 
that  the  fashion  of  founding  them  should  revive  with 
Catholic  ascendency.  The  founder  of  Trinity,  Sir  Thom- 
as Pope,  was  an  ardent  partisan  of  the  Reaction,  and  has 
earnestly  enjoined  his  Fellows  to  avoid  the  contamination 
of  the  Protestant  heres3^  He  lived  to  see  them  make 
way  for  Protestants.  Sir  Thomas  "White,  the  founder 
of  St.  John's,  was  a  great  merchant,  and  one  of  a  group 
whose  princely  munificence  in  the  endowment  of  literary 
or  charitable  institutions  ennobled  English  commerce  in 
those  days.  In  England,  at  the  present  day,  a  man  who 
has  grown  rich  by  commerce  generally  aspires  to  found 
a  family.  In  America,  it  seems,  he  still  asj^ircs  to  found 
an  institution. 

The  Elizabethan  era  was  glorious  at  Oxford  as  well  as 
elsewhere,  though  the  literary  spirit  of  the  University 
was  classical,  not  national,  like  that  which  culminated  in 
Shakspeare.  The  learned  queen  paid  us  a  visit,  was  en- 
tertained with  classical  dramas  and  flattered  in  classical 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD.  257 

harangues,  and,  at  parting,  expressed  her  warm  affection 
for  the  University.  On  Shotover  Hill,  over  which  the 
old  London  Eoad  passed,  is  a  monument  marking  the 
spot  to  which  the  heads  of  colleges  toiled  up  to  meet  her, 
and  where,  no  doubt,  there  was  abundance  of  ceremony 
and  genuflection.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  her  still 
more  learned  successor  made  the  light  of  his  countenance 
shine  upon  us.  In  the  great  Quadrangle  of  the  Schools, 
a  very  noble  monument  of  the  late  Tudor  architecture, 
upon  a  fagade  pedantically  adorned  with  all  the  Greek 
orders,  sits  the  Q^gy  of  the  royal  Solomon,  majestic  as 
when  he  drank  the  rich  incense  of  Bacon's  adulation. 
And  be  it  said  that  James  was,  at  all  events,  none  the 
worse  for  his  learning.  It  inspired  him  with  sone  benef- 
icent ideas,  and  redeemed  his  weakness  from  utter  degra- 
dation. 

James  bestowed  on  the  University  the  right  of  send- 
ing representatives  to  Parliament.  A  questionable  boon. 
For,  though  universities,  if  they  are  worth  any  thing,  will 
make  their  influence  felt  in  politics,  it  is  not  desirable 
that  they  should  be  directly  involved  in  the  struggles  of 
political  parties.  Theirs  should  be  a  neutral  territory 
and  a  serener  air. 

Exeter  College,  founded  by  a  prelate  of  Edward  II., 
was  refounded  and  raised  to  its  present  magnificence  by 
Sir  William  Petre,  a  statesman  of  the  Elizabethan  age, 
and  an  upholder  of  the  Spartan  theory  of  education 
against  Ascham,  who  took  the  more  liberal  view.  These 
famous  Elizabethan  statesmen  were  all  highly-cultivated 
men.  Cultivation  without  force  may  be  impotent,  but 
force  without  cultivation  is  blind.     Force  without  culti- 


258  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

vation  has  produced  great  effects  for  tlie  time,  but  only 
cultivated  men  have  left  their  mark  upon  the  world. 

Another  knight  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  Sir  Thomas 
Bodlej,  founded  the  Bodleian  Library,  now  one  of  the 
famous  libraries  of  the  world.  The  book -worm  will 
scarcely  find  a  greater  paradise  than  the  good  knight's 
antique  reading-room,  especially  in  the  quiet  months  of 
the  summer  vacation.  If  the  spirit  of  learned  leisure 
and  repose  breathes  any  where,  it  is  there. 

Jesus  College  was  founded  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
for  Welshmen,  the  remnant  of  the  old  Celtic  inhabitants 
of  Britain,  who,  saved  from  the  Saxon  sword  by  the  ram- 
part of  the  "Welsh  hills,  had  in  that  fastness  preserved 
their  national  language  and  character,  and  do  still  to 
some  extent  preserve  them,  though,  railroads  and  other 
centralizing  and  civilizing  influences  are  now  fast  com- 
pleting the  inevitable  work  of  amalgamation.  To  draw 
Welsh  students  to  English  Universities  would  of  course 
be  an  object  with  all  who  desired  the  consolidation  of 
the  United  Kingdom.  This  was  a  Protestant  college, 
founded  to  uphold  and  disseminate  the  faith  which  Lin- 
coln College,  its  neighbor  over  the  way,  had  been  found- 
ed to  combat  and  put  down.  The  Fellows  are  adjured  to 
prefer  Scripture  to  that  which  is  not  Scripture,  truth  to 
tradition.  They  are  also  directed  specially  to  cultivate, 
and  even  to  speak,  Hebrew — a  language  which  Protest- 
ants  loved  as  the  key  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  Catho- 
lics dreaded  as  the  sure  source  of  misbeliefs.  According 
to  the  strong  partisans  of  Catholicism,  to  learn  Greek  was 
heretical,  to  learn  Ilebrew  was  diabolical.  The  lingering 
love  of  clerical  celibacy,  however,  betrays  itself  in  a  stat- 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD.  259 

ute  forbidding  the  principal  to  marry.  It  is  well  known 
how  strong  this  feeling  was  in  the  half-Catholic  heart  of 
the  Virgin  Queen. 

Wadham  College  was  founded  in  the  reign  of  James  I., 
on  a  site  occupied  by  a  monastery  of  Austin  friars.  In 
style  it  is  a  mixture  of  the  Gothic  college  with  the  Tudor 
manor-house.  In  beauty  and  attractiveness  as  a  home  of 
learning  it  is  second,  perhaps,  only  to  Magdalen.  It  is, 
moreover,  interesting  as  the  last  great  collegiate  founda- 
tion of  the  mediaeval  type,  the  last  creation  of  that  medi- 
aeval spirit,  which,  like  Gothic  architecture,  lingered  at 
Oxford  longer  than  in  any  other  place  in  Protestant  Brit- 
ain. Sir  Nicholas  Wadham,  whose  name  it  bears,  seems 
to  have  been,  like  a  large  portion  of  the  wealthier  classes 
at  that  time,  a  waverer  in  religion.  It  is  said  that  he 
first  intended  to  found  a  monastery  abroad,  but  afterward 
made  up  his  mind  to  found  a  college  at  home.  Upon  his 
death  his  widow.  Dame  Dorothy  "Wadham,  fulfilled  his 
design  by  building  and  endowing  this  noble  house.  The 
hand  of  time  has  touched  it  with  a  far  higher  beauty, 
especially  on  its  garden  side,  since  its  foundress  looked 
upon  her  work. 

Two  colleges,  Pembroke  and  Worcester  (the  latter 
known  to  our  summer  visitors  by  the  beauty  of  its  gar- 
dens), are  of  later  date  than  Wadham ;  but  these  grew 
up  to  their  present  goodly  proportions  out  of  foundations 
which,  in  their  origin,  were  comparatively  poor  and  in- 
significant. 

Meantime  a  great  change  has  been  passing  over  the 
character  of  the  University.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
we  had  been  liberal  and  even  somewhat  revolutionary, 


260  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

both  ill  religion  and  politics;  we  now  became  at  once 
Tory  and  High-Church.  We  had  been  the  school  of  lib- 
erty, i^rogress,  hope ;  wc  now  became  the  school  of  doc- 
trines most  adverse  to  them  all.  This  was  due  mainly  to 
the  clerical  character  of  the  Fellowship,  which,  the  Uni- 
versity having  been  completely  absorbed  in  the  colleges, 
bound  her  destinies  to  those  of  the  Established  Church 
and  its  protector  and  ally,  the  Crown.  The  rule  of  cel- 
ibacy, and  the  somewhat  monkish  tendencies  of  college 
life,  also  contributed  to  make  Oxford,  as  she  has  twice 
been,  the  scene  of  a  great  Romanizing  reaction. 

In  restoring  the  beautiful  Gothic  Church  of  St.  Marj'-, 
where  the  University  sermons  are  preached,  we  have 
spared,  on  historical  grounds,  an  incongruous  portico,  in 
the  Italian  style,  which,  though  built  nearly  a  century 
after  the  Reformation,  bears  an  image  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child.  This  is  a  monument  of  Laud,  and  helped  to  send 
him  to  the  scaffold.  In  the  interior  quadrangle  of  St 
John's  College  stand  the  statues  of  Charles  and  Ilenrietta, 
placed  there  by  the  same  hand.  Laud  was  the  President 
of  this  college.  Ilere  he  learned  the  narrow,  arbitrary 
notions  of  government  which  he  afterward  put  in  practice 
with  such  fatal  effect  upon  a  more  important  scene ;  and 
here,  in  angry  college  controversies  with  the  Puritans,  he 
imbibed  the  malignant  hatred  of  that  sect  which,  when 
he  had  mounted  to  power,  broke  out  in  persecution. 

Laud  was  a  University  reformer,  tliough  in  a  despotic 
way.  lie  gave  us  a  new  Code  of  University  Statutes, 
containing,  no  doubt,  some  enactments  which  were  useful 
in  their  way.  But  here,  too,  he  was  Laud.  He  complete- 
ly sacrificed  liberty  to  order.     lie  gave  us  no  power  of 


THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  261 

amendment ;  and  he  legally  bound  upon  our  necks  the 
oligarchy  toward  which  our  once  free  Constitution  had 
for  some  time  been  practically  tending.  We  burst  his 
fetters  only  a  few  years  ago. 

During  the  great  civil  war,  Oxford,  once  almost  the 
head-quarters  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  was  the  head-quar- 
ters of  Charles.  The  city  was  in  a  state  of  siege.  Study 
ceased.  The  students  were  in  arms.  The  Eoyalist  Par- 
liaments sat  in  our  college  halls  and  our  Convocation. 
One  seat  of  learning  became  the  Mint.  Soldiers  trooped 
in  the  streets.  The  college  plate  was  melted  down  into 
money ;  and  thus  perished,  probably,  a  rare  collection  of 
mediaeval  works  of  art.  The  monuments  of  that  period 
are  not  houses  of  learning,  but  the  traces  of  earth-works 
which  united  the  Eiver  Cherwgll  with  the  Isis,  and  pro- 
tected the  beleaguered  city. 

The  victorious  Puritans  have  left  their  mark  on  some 
painted  windows  and  Romish  images.  The  extreme  fa- 
natics of  the  party  would  have  done  away  with  Universi- 
ties and  learning  altogether,  and  left  nothing  but  the  Bible 
and  the  pulpit.  But  Cromwell  was  of  a  different  mind. 
He  was  no  incarnation  either  of  mere  fanaticism  or  of 
brute  force.  He  had  been  bred  at  a  grammar-school  and 
at  Cambridge.  What  was  more,  he  had  conversed  on  the 
highest  themes  with  the  choicest  spirits  of  his  time.  He 
protected  and  fostered  both  Universities,  and  did  his  best 
to  draw  highly-cultivated  men  from  them  into  the  public 
service.  Of  course  he  put  Puritans  in  our  high  places. 
But  these  men  promoted  learning  as  well  as  Puritanism, 
restored  discipline,  revived  education,  and  upheld  ibo 
honor  of  the  University  iu  their  da} . 


262  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  OXFORD. 

Of  course  Oxford  hailed  the  Eestoration.  Alas  for  the 
depths  of  servility  into  which,  in  that  her  evil  hour,  she 
fell !  Archbishop  Sheldon  then  reigned  over  iis  in  the 
spirit  of  the  most  violent  Kojalism  and  the  narrowest  in- 
tolerance. The  Sheldonian  Theatre,  in  which  our  Com- 
memorations are  held,  is  his  work.  Let  it  do  what  it 
may  to  redeem  an  unloved  and  unhonored  name. 

The  KadclylTe  Library,  rising  with  its  Palladian  dome 
in  not  unpleasing  contrast  to  the  Gothic  buildings  which 
surround  it,  and  upon  the  whole  galaxy  of  which  it  looks 
down,  is  a  memorial  of  the  Augustan  glories  of  the  reign 
of  Anne,  of  which  even  Tory  Oxford  did  not  fail  to  catch 
the  beams.  Its  founder,  Dr.  EadclylFe,  was  the  court  phy- 
sician of  the  time.  Less  pleasing  memorials  of  the  same 
age  are  the  Chapel  of  Trinity  College,  and  other  build- 
ings, designed  by  Aldrich,  the  Dean  of  Christchurch  in 
that  day,  a  tasteless  architect,  but  a  man  of  liberal  culture, 
and  the  centre  of  a  group  of  scholars  who  made  Christ- 
church  illustrious  in  his  time. 

And  now  we  come  to  a  period  over  which  every  loyal 
son  of  Oxford  will  gladly  pass  as  quickly  as  he  may. 
The  State  Church  of  England  during  the  greater  half  of 
the  last  century  was  torpid  and  corrupt,  and  Oxford 
shared  its  torpor  and  corruption.  The  only  spirit  active 
in  the  University  was  that  of  Jacobitism — a  political  con- 
spiracy in  favor  of  the  heir  of  James  II.,  and  against  the 
constitutional  liberties  of  the  nation  —  destitute,  in  the 
case  of  the  Oxford  Fellows,  even  of  the  redeeming  lustre 
which  valor  sheds  over  the  self-devoted  adherents  of  a 
bad  cause.  Instead  of  bleeding  at  Preston  and  Culloden, 
these   men  merely  indulged  their   factious   feeling  by 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD,  263 

"  drinking  the  king  over  the  water"  in  what  Gibbon  calls 
the  "  deep  but  dull  potations  which  excused  the  brisk  in- 
temperance of  youth."  In  truth  the  University,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  could  scarcely  be  said  to  live 
in  those  days.  Her  corpse  was  possessed  by  an  alien 
spirit  of  clerical  depravity  and  political  intrigue.  Learn- 
ing slept,  education  languished,  university  and  college 
examinations  became  a  farce.  Life  in  most  of  the  col- 
leges was  indolent,  sensual,  and  coarse.  A  few  names, 
such  as  those  of  Lowth  and  Wharton,  redeemed  our  dis- 
honor. Christchurch — thanks,  chiefly,  to  the  good  schol- 
ars it  received  from  Westminster  school — maintained  a 
position  higher  than  that  of  the  other  colleges.  But  our 
general  history  for  seventy  or  eighty  years  was  such  that 
we  would  gladly  bury  it  in  oblivion.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  a  University  where  duty  was  dead,  where  religious 
faith  was  a  mere  prejudice  deeply  tainted  with  political 
bigotry,  should  have  become  the  mother  of  skepticism 
and  irreligion,  or  that  the  most  conspicuous  name  among 
the  Oxford  men  of  the  last  century  should  be  that  of 
Gibbon.  If  we  seek  architectural  memorials  of  this  evil 
age,  they  will  be  found  in  tasteless  masses  of  modern 
building,  such  as  the  "  new  buildings"  at  Magdalen,  de- 
signed merely  as  luxurious  residences,  without  any 
thought  of  the  higher  aims  of  architectural  art. 

The  commencement  of  the  present  century,  when  the 
mind  of  Europe  had  been  stirred  by  the  French  Ecvolu- 
tion,  and  the  great  struggles,  political  and  intellectual  as 
well  as  military,  to  which  it  gave  birth,  witnessed  a  re- 
vival of  learning  and  education  at  Oxford.  Then  it  was 
that  our  examinations  were  again  made  effective,  that  our 


264  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD, 

class-list  was  instituted,  and  tbat  Oxford  once  more  be- 
came, what  slie  had  so  long  ceased  to  be,  a  power  in  the 
intellectual  world.  Then  it  was  that  our  Cannings  and 
Peels  began  to  arise,  and  that  we  began  again  to  send 
men  of  worth  and  high  aspirations  into  the  service  of  the 
state.  Still  we  were  High  Tories.  At  Oxford,  in  1814, 
the  Allied  Sovereigns  celebrated  their  victory,  and  a  me- 
morial of  their  visit  is  seen  in  the  portraits  of  the  Emperor 
of  Eussia  and  the  King  of  Prussia,  which  hang,  with  that 
of  George  IV.  between  them,  in  the  Shcldouian  Theatre. 
Among  the  honors  and  rewards  heaped  on  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  the  great  chief  of  the  Tory  party,  was  the 
Chancellorship  of  the  University,  and  at  his  installation 
Oxford  was  the  scene  of  a  memorable  gathering  of  his 
political  adherents.  It  was,  in  flxct,  their  first  rally  after 
their  great  overthrow. 

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  intellectual  revival  of  the 
University  commenced,  when,  owing  to  the  clerical  and 
half- monastic  character  of  the  colleges,  Oxford  became 
the  centre  of  the  great  priestly  and  Romanizing  reaction 
in  the  Anglican  Church,  of  which  Dr.  Newman  was  the 
illustrious  leader,  and  which  was  provoked  by  the  gen- 
eral progress  of  liberal  opinions  in  the  nation  and  the 
victory  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  The  annals  of  that 
reaction  belong  rather  to  the  history  of  the  Anglican 
Church  than  to  that  of  the  University  of  Oxford.  But 
when  it  was  at  its  height  it  completely  absorbed  the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  the  University,  and  fatally  shattered 
many  a  fine  mind  destined  by  nature  to  render  high 
service  to  Oxford  and  to  the  nation,  but  now  rendered 
useless,  excci)t  as  the  wrecked  vessel  which  marks  the 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  265 

sunken  reef.  Of  this  attempt  to  revive  the  faith  and  the 
ecclesiastical  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  archi- 
tectural additions  and  restorations  in  the  Gothic  style 
with  which  Oxford  abounds,  and  which  have  been  made 
within  the  last  thirty  years,  are  in  part  the  monuments, 
though  they  are  mainly  the  fruits  of  an  improved  taste  in 
architecture,  and  a  returning  preference  for  the  Eomantic 
over  the  Classical  in  poetry  and  art.  The  Martyrs'  Me- 
morial also — erected  near  the  spot  where  Cranmer,  Lati- 
mer, and  Eidley  suffered — may  be  regarded  as,  in  another 
sense,  a  monument  of  the  same  epoch.  It  is  the  archi- 
tectural manifesto  of  the  Protestant  party  against  the 
Eomanizing  doctrines  of  Dr.  Newman  and  his  disciples. 

The  secession  of  Dr.  Newman  to  the  Church  of  Eome 
closed,  in  truth,  the  history  of  the  religious  movement  of 
which  he  was  the  leader.  With  him,  its  genius,  its  po- 
etry, its  chivalry,  its  fascinations  for  high  intellects  and 
spiritual  natures  passed  away.  Since  that  time  it  has  al- 
most lost  its  spiritual  character,  and  degenerated  into  a 
mere  State  Church  combination,  the  subservient  ally  of 
political  Toryism,  and  the  tool  of  the  Tory  chiefs.  Twen- 
ty years  ago  it  carried  with  it  almost  all  the  powerful  in- 
tellects of  the  University  ;  now  it  has  decisively  lost  them 
all.  Eomanizing  extravagances  in  ceremonial,  lanofuaQ;e, 
dress,  and  all  that  Carlyle  calls  the  "millinery  and  up- 
holstery" part  of  the  movement,  still  go  on ;  but  these 
are  the  freaks  and  toys  of  children,  not  the  deliberate  ef- 
forts of  men  to  master  the  intellect  of  the  world. 

Since  the  catastrophe  of  Tractarianism  the  proper  in- 
terests of  the  University  have  revived,  and  a  more  liberal 
spirit  has  begun  to  pervade  our  society  and  administra- 


266  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

tiou.  The  Tractariaii  movement,  tliougli  itself  reaction- 
ary, broke  up  old  Anglican  and  Tory  prejudices,  weaned 
active  minds  from  subservience  to  custom  and  tradition, 
loosened  the  soil  in  all  directions,  and  prepared  the  ground 
for  healthier  plants  to  grow.  Ilaving  trained  those  who 
were  influenced  by  it  to  rest  on  authority  instead  of  rest- 
ing on  truth,  it,  of  course,  at  its  downfall,  left  behind  it  a 
certain  amount  of  religious  perplexity  and  distress  i^ccul- 
iar  to  Oxford,  besides  what  is  generally  prevalent  in  an 
age  of  iinal  transition  from  false  authority  to  rational  re- 
ligion. But  this  is  accidental,  and,  as  Oxford  teachers 
and  students  brace  themselves  to  their  proper  duties,  it 
will  pass  away. 

Meantime  our  course  of  education,  till  lately  confined 
to  classics  and  mathematics,  is  being  rendered  more  lib- 
eral and  more  adequate  to  the  needs  of  our  age  by  the 
admission  of  Science,  Ilistory,  Jurisprudence,  and  Politic- 
al Economy.  The  Museum,  newly  built  on  the  north  of 
the  city,  and  the  Taylor  Institution  for  the  study  of  mod- 
ern languages,  arc  the  architectural  expressions  of  an  on- 
ward movement  in  education  almost  as  important  as  that 
which  substituted  classical  literature  for  the  scholastic 
philosophy  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

We  have  also  got  rid,  by  the  help  of  Parliament,  of  the 
antiquated  codes  of  statutes  with  which  each  founder,  anx- 
ious to  perpetuate  his  own  will  to  the  end  of  time,  had 
prevented  the  free  development  and  frozen  the  life-blood 
of  his  college.  Our  case  is  a  warning  to  others,  especial- 
ly to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  where  private  mu- 
nificence displays  itself  to  so  large  an  extent  in  tlie  en- 
dowment of  institutions,  against  the  danger,  incident  to 


THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  267 

perpetual  endowments,  of  allowing  the  gifts  of  one  gen- 
eration to  become  the  fetters  of  those  which  follow.  ISTo 
perpetual  foundation  should  be  permitted  without  a  pow- 
er vested  in  proper  authorities  of  amending,  from  time  to 
time,  the  regulations  of  the  founder,  so  far  as  is  consistent 
with  his  main  object,  which  should  always  be  distinctly 
stated  at  the  commencement  of  the  instrument  of  found- 
ation. 

At  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  assistance  we  shook 
off,  in  part  at  least,  the  oligarchical  government  imposed 
on  us  by  Laud,  and  recovered  in  some  measure  the  free- 
dom of  action  and  the  power  of  self-adaptation  and  de- 
velopment without  which  no  institution  can  long  sustain 
its  greatness. 

The  friends  of  Eeform  and  Progress  within  the  Uni- 
versity did  not  call  on  the  central  government  for  aid 
without  hesitation.  All  Englishmen  are  attached  to  lo- 
cal liberties  and  jealous  of  the  interference  of  the  central 
power.  We  are,  moreover,  convinced  that  the  great  places 
of  national  education  and  learning,  as  the  guardians  of 
interests  and  principles  which  are  tlie  common  heritage 
of  al],  should  be  as  free  as  possible  from  the  influence  and 
vicissitudes  of  political  parties.  But  it  was  for  emanci- 
pation, not  for  interference,  that  Oxford  reformers  appeal- 
ed to  Parliament ;  and  it  was  in  a  case  where,  from  the 
absence  of  any  legal  power  of  amending  our  statutes,  wc 
were  unable  to  emancipate  ourselves. 

Moreover,  from  the  predominance  of  the  clerical  ele- 
ment (the  immemorial  bane  of  our  greatness),  we  are  sub- 
jected, in  academical  legislation,  to  an  influence  more  sec- 
tional and  more  injurious  than  that  of  any  political  party 


268  THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 

not  wholly  regardless  of  the  general  interests  of  the  na- 
tion. It  is  on  this  account  tliat  tlic  friends  of  liberty  at 
Oxford  are  obliged  again  to  appeal  to  Parliament  to  re- 
lieve us  from  tbc  religious  tests,  and  enable  us  once  more 
to  become  the  University  of  the  whole  nation.  Your  Ox- 
ford guest  will  not  exert  himself  with  the  less  energy  or 
the  less  confidence  in  this  cause  after  having,  once  in  his 
life,  breathed  the  air,  to  him  so  strange,  to  you  so  happi- 
ly familiar,  of  perfect  religious  liberty,  and  learned,  from 
the  evidence  of  his  own  senses,  how  false,  how  blasphe- 
mous is  the  belief  that  rational  religion  is  opposed  to  free- 
dom, or  that  freedom  is  injurious  to  rational  religion. 

Thus  we  have  traced,  though  necessarily  in  a  brief  and 
summary  way,  the  history  of  this  group  of  corporations, 
and  seen  the  united  threads  of  their  existence  pass  through 
many  successive  phases  of  the  national  history,  and  re- 
flect the  varying  hues,  the  happy  lights,  and  the  melan- 
choly shadows  of  each  phase  in  turn.  We  have  seen  pass 
before  us  the  long  train  of  Founders,  in  the  characters 
and  costumes  of  many  successive  ages :  the  sceptred  Plan- 
tagenets ;  the  warrior  prelates ;  the  ecclesiastical  states- 
men of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  the  grave  knights,  bountiful 
ladies,  and  wealthy  merchants  of  the  Tudor  age ;  the 
more  familiar  forms  of  modern  intellect  and  science.  A 
common  purpose  runs  through  and  unites  the  whole, 
binding  the  present  tq  all  the  generations  of  the  past.  In 
the  latest  buildings  we  see  modern  science  installed  in  a 
home  prepared  for  it  by  the  Gothic  architecture  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

It  only  remains  to  be  said  that  Oxford,  like  all  the  an- 
tiquities and  glories  of  England,  is  yours  as  well  as  ours. 


THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD.  269 

It  is  a  part  of  the  common  heritage  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  I  trust  that  any  American  who  may  come  to  it,  ei- 
ther as  a  visitor  or  a  student,  will  not  fail  to  be  welcomed, 
as  I  know  by  happy  experience  that  Englishmen  are  wel- 
comed here. 


THE   END. 


Carlyle^s  Frederick. 


HISTORY    OF  FRIED  RICH   11,   called 

Frederick  the  Great.  By  Thomas  Carlyle,  Author 
of  a  ^'■Hijlory  of  the  Fre?ich  Rrvobction^''  ^'■Oliver  Crom- 
well^'' &•€.  With  Portraits  and  Maps.  Complete  in  Six 
Volumes.     \2mo,  Cloth,  $2  So  per  Volume. 


Mr.  Carlylo  is  about  tlio  only  living  Tvritei-  whose  opinions  are  of  value  even  vchen 
it  is  impossible  to  agree  v.'ith  them.  No  one  is  more  fond  than  he  of  paradox,  but  few 
men's  paradoxes  hint  at  so  important  truths.  No  one  with  a  more  autocratic  dogma- 
tism sets  up  strong  men  as  heroes,  or  condemns  the  hapless  possessors  of  pot-bellies  to 
infamy;  but  then  his  judgments,  even  when  they  can  not  be  confirmed,  always  en- 
force some  weighty  principle  which  we  were  in  danger  of  forgetting.  And  if  it  some- 
times  happens  that  neither  the  hero  nor  the  principles  commend  themselves,  still  the 
thoroughness  of  the  execution,  and  the  fire  with  wiiich  all  his  writings  are  instinct 
never  fail  to  make  a  great  work London  Review. 

lie  writes  history  just  as  no  man  but  Carlyle  can  write  it,  and  for  this  reason  his 
history  will  be  widely  held  in  great  admiration.  'We  should  never  turn  to  this  so 
much  for  a  history  of  Frederick  as  for  Carlyle :  he  gives  us  himself  emphaticallv 
amusingly,  unquestionably,  in  those  pages;  yet  he  picks  up  facts  to  illustrate  the  life 
of  his  hero  and  his  times  that  no  other  man  would  have  thought  of  touching  and  to 
the  thinking  mind  these  facts  are  full  of  the  bone  and  sinew  of  history.— Evening 
rest. 

History,  in  the  true  sense,  he  does  not  and  can  not  write,  for  he  looks  on  mankind 
as  a  herd  without  volition  and  without  moral  force;  but  such  vivid  pictures  of  events, 
such  living  conceptions  of  character,  we  find  nowhere  else  in  prose.  The  figures  of 
most  historians  seem  like  dolls  stulTod  with  bran,  whose  whole  substance  runs  out 
through  any  hole  that  ci  iticism  may  tear  in  them ;  but  Carlyle's  arc  so  real  that,  if 
you  prick  them,  they  bleed Xorth  Ammcan  Rcvicu: 

When  Carlyle  writes  a  book  wo  only  look  into  it  to  see  Carlyle,  not  the  subject  of 
which  he  writes.  Ho  stands  up  among  authors  like  a  knarlcd  and  sturdy  oak,  full 
of  all  sorts  of  fantastic  .'^hapes,  ridiculous  oddities  that  denote  a  superabundance  of 
vigor  in  his  growth— a  vi,Q;or  that  will  not  be  confined  by  the  laws  of  ordinary  life. 
Frederick,  as  seen  through  the  eyes  of  Carlyle,  will  and  does  possess  the  attributc-i 
of  a  god  that  never  existed  among  men.  This  book  will  seize  the  big-cared  world, 
and  conip::l  it  to  listOTi. — A'os'ou  /Vs.'. 


Carlylcs  Frederick  ike  Great. 


Probably  the  Ilistory  of  Frederick  will  forever  remain  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  lit- 
erary painting,  a.s  wtll  as  one  of  tlic  most  marvelous  attempts  at  special  pleading, 
extant  in  our  own  or  any  language. — London  Sjirclator. 

The  redactcur  can  not  adequately  convey,  iu  the  short  space  allotted  him,  a  con- 
ception of  the  masterly  thought,  the  comely  diction,  the  astute  philosophy,  which 
manifest  themselves  on  every  page  of  this  last  product  of  Carlyle's  scholarly  re- 
searches and  gifted  intellect.  There  arc  some  publications  submitted  to  hia  examina- 
tion which,  because  of  their  incorporate,  inherent  power,  can  not  receive  from  his  pen 
a  satisfactory  mentioning  of.  "  Frederick  the  Great"  is  one  of  them.  Let  the  re- 
viewer be  never  so  succinct  and  compreliensivc  in  tlie  expression  of  his  critical 
opinions,  he  can  simply  marvel  in  silence  at  the  graphic  details  (as  in  the  hook 
now  under  our  thumbing)  of  plots  and  campaigns,  in  cabinet  council  or  on  field  of 
battle,  which  captivate  his  attention,i>nd  then  do  what  wc  most  sincerely  desire  in 
this  respect — enjoin  upon  every  reader  an  earnest  perusal  of  the  same.  And  this  is 
the  best,  nay,  all,  that  he  can  do. — Uome  Jounuil. 

Carlyle  is,  indeed,  quaint  and  odd ;  but  he  is  no  less  earnest,  and  true,  and  noble, 
and  grand.  lie  is  the  one  specimen  of  his  kind,  we  really  believe,  of  philosophers, 
historians,  and  poets.  Of  course  we  find  his  peculiarities  all  through  the  great  work, 
and  equally  of  course  we  find  it  profoundly  interesting  in  matter  and  piquant  in 
style. — Einscopal  Recorder. 

Mr.  Carlyle  has  at  last  completed  his  graven  image,  and  sets  it  up  for  the  admira- 
tion of  the  world.  The  Pmclfunguses  and  Dryasdusts,  whom  Carlyle  delights  to  rid- 
icule, have  been  great  helps  to  him  in  gathering  up  the  details  of  a  life  wliich  at  best 
was  unamiable,  if  not  brutal;  stern  and  unlovely,  if  not  repulsive— the  life  of  a  man 
•whose  love  for  war  in  the  field  was  carried  into  the  closet,  and  penetrated  the  gentler 
seclusion  of  the  family  circle.  Mr.  Carlyle,  with  tliat  amazing  fancy  for  hero-wor- 
ship in  which  he  excels,  would  force  us  to  believe  his  paragon  all  that  he  paints 
him;  and  there  is  certainly  power  in  the  picture.  The  old  recurda  have  been  most 
thoroughly  sifted  by  Carlyle,  who  seems  to  have  eliminated  every  grain  of  wheat  from 
bushels  of  chafT. — Examiner'and  Chronicle. 

The  reader  is  out  of  patience  with  him  in  almost  every  page,  yet  reads  him  through 
to  the  end,  and  closes  the  book  still  wishing  for  more.  lie  is  a  man  of  tremendous 
prejudices  and  partialities.  Frederick  is  one  of  his  heroe.".  Carlyle,  however,  has 
reasons  always  to  give  for  hia  likes  and  di.slikcs,  and  one  is  sure  to  bo  interested  in 

the  argunftnt,  whether  he  accepts  the  conclusion  or  not Christian  Times  and 

Wilncus. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 


IIarpkr  &  BROTilitRS  w;7/  sr>i^  the  ahoz'c  work  l<y  mail,  fostas^c  prc/)aid,  to  any 
/•art  of  Ihc  United  States,  on  rcceij>t  of  the  price. 


^    ■•. 


.J 


